Helga, the Artiste
by DoofusPrime
Summary: Taking the advice of her school psychologist, Helga enters an art competition.  When she wins first place after submitting her secret shrine to Arnold, Helga discovers that her good fortune may have some unintended consequences.
1. Prize Surprise

_**Notes** - As you can probably see, Helga is the focus of this story, but lots of other characters play a big role as well. This is my first _Hey Arnold!_ fan fiction - I recently finished re-watching the series for the first time since I was a kid and found that I enjoyed it so much, I thought it would be fun to write a story. Hope you guys enjoy it!

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**Prize Surprise**

XX

The Pataki household was quiet, except for the faint sound of water running inside the upstairs bathroom. Helga stood sullenly at the bathroom door and rubbed her eyes, still trying to wake up. Big Bob was taking a morning shower. Helga knew she would not be able to shower or brush her teeth if she wanted to get to school on time. Not an unusual occurrence, really – if any of her classmates made a comment about her smelling, she'd just have to respond with a knuckle sandwich. Helga sighed and walked down the stairs.

"Miiiriam!"

A lunch box lay on the kitchen table, open and unpacked. Miriam herself lay sleeping on the kitchen floor. Helga reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into the kitchen, rolling her eyes as she stepped over her mother's prone form. Lunch, lunch – what did she want to eat at school? Opening the refrigerator revealed empty rows upon empty rows. Miriam had forgotten to get groceries again.

Helga knew she could grab the jar of grape jelly sitting in a lonesome corner of the fridge and trade it with Harold for real food during her lunch period, but she decided she would buy a school lunch instead. Helga grabbed her mother's purse from the kitchen counter and rooted around for bills and loose change.

"Miriam, I'm taking your money for lunch."

A faint groan came from the kitchen floor as her mother shifted around in reply. Stepping over Miriam again, Helga pocketed the lunch money and opened the front door.

"Bye mom, bye dad!"

No answer came from the house as Helga shut the front door behind her. The bus was already approaching from down the street, and the sound of shifting gears echoed through the city block. At least Helga would not get in trouble for being late today. As she sat down on her front step and waited for the bus, the mailman passed by on his daily route.

"Hey Helga, what's shakin'?"

"Hi Harvey. School is shaking."

"Maybe some mail can turn that frown upside down, huh?"

Harvey smiled as he fished an envelope out of his mailbag and passed it to Helga, who tried to mask her interest as she grabbed it. Harvey waved goodbye and ambled off down the street as the school bus pulled to a stop in front of Helga's house.

As she stepped onto the bus, Helga stared intently at the envelope, barely noticing her classmates as she made her way down the aisle. The envelope's return address read _Caulfield Academy of the Arts_. Helga felt a flood of nervous anticipation upon reading the address. She had been waiting to get this particular envelope for weeks. But what was inside?

Helga sat down in an unoccupied seat near the back of the bus and glanced furtively at her classmates. Fortunately, no one seemed to be paying any attention. Most of Helga's attention was soon fixed on a familiar football-shaped head, which bobbed in laughter as it conversed with a column of black hair beside it. Neither of the two boys were paying any attention to her either. The coast was clear; Helga tore the envelope apart and unfolded the letter tucked inside.

_Helga Geraldine Pataki -_

_ Congratulations! Your entry in the annual Caulfield Academy of the Arts youth competition, 'Shrine of the Sublime', has won first place. We look forward to hearing you give a presentation of your work at the art show and awards ceremony, where your winning piece will be on display. Please check your submissions pamphlet for more information._

"Yes!"

Helga stood up and pumped her fist triumphantly in the air. Her classmates turned and stared at her in unison. The bus driver himself stared at the back of the bus through the rear view mirror. Helga laughed nervously and sat down back in the seat, but her friend Phoebe was already getting up to see what was going on.

"Hello Helga," said Phoebe as she stood beside Helga's seat. "I noticed that you bypassed my seat when you got on the bus. Is something going on?"

"No, not at all Phoebe! Everything's the same as usual."

"May I sit down?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever floats your boat."

Phoebe slid into the seat beside her friend, taking off her backpack and holding it primly in her lap. "What do you have there?" she asked, pointing to the letter clenched in Helga's hands.

"Oh, this? This is nothing. Just some letter." Helga stuffed the letter inside her pink dress, beside her favorite locket, but she could tell Phoebe wasn't buying it.

Not only that, but Helga felt an urge to brag about her accomplishment. Nothing like the way Olga was always going on about things, of course, but it wasn't often that Helga got a little recognition. There was the spelling bee she almost won, and the poetry contest at school that one time, but this was an even bigger deal than either of those. Helga felt her resolve crumble as she gave another glance around the bus and sidled up closer to Phoebe.

"Okay, look, here's the deal – I sent some artwork into this competition, and I just got a letter back from them. I won first place, Phoebe! How about that, huh?"

A brief flash of jealousy crossed Phoebe's face, but it quickly changed into a smile.

"That's wonderful, Helga. Congratulations!"

Phoebe had to admit that she was not surprised her friend had won an art competition. She had always known that Helga was a very creative person – more creative than herself, Phoebe had to admit.

"What did you make that ended up winning the competition?"

Helga shrugged. "Some sculpture. It's not important. Dr. Bliss gave me the idea a few weeks ago, told me she thought I had a shot at it. She gave me the lowdown on the competition and all that. I guess maybe that crazy shrink had a good idea after all!"

"What did your parents think about it?" asked Phoebe.

"Are you kidding? My parents have no idea I even entered the competition. It's not like they'd care, anyways. Either that or Bob would've tried to tell me what to create for the contest to win first place and ruin all the fun."

Phoebe nodded. "I suppose so."

The bus came to a stop in front of P.S. 118, opening its sliding door as Helga's classmates reluctantly got out of their seats. Helga's heart skipped a beat as she caught a glimpse of cornflower hair and a blue baseball cap in the aisle. When Arnold glanced back at her for a moment, her dreamy smile flashed into a scowl in the blink of an eye. At this point, scowling at Arnold was like a reflex action. Helga didn't even have to think about it. Despite the scowl, however, Helga found herself in a rare good mood.

"Oh, and Phoebe?" she said as her friend walked down the aisle in front of her.

"Yes, Helga?"

"No one else hears about this contest, got it? Keep those lips zipped."

Phoebe adjusted her oval glasses and smiled at Helga as they got off the bus, stepping onto the concrete sidewalk in front of the school.

"Zipping!"

XX

Applause rose up from the audience in a wall of sound. Helga stood on stage, feeling a wave of approval washing over her as she held her million dollar jumbo-sized check. She waved adoringly at her fans. The crowd was going wild. Helga G. Pataki was a star. She was an artiste!

"Thank you, thank you!" Helga blew kisses at the crowd. "I couldn't have done it without the inspiration of Toulouse-Lautrec, Hopper, and so many others! They built the foundation upon which my monument of artistic prowess has risen! But most of all, I couldn't have done it without my muse, my eternal love, my husband - Arnold Pataki!"

Arnold stepped out from the red velvet curtain behind Helga, taking a spot by her side as the two of them waved at the screaming audience. Helga grabbed Arnold by his back and swept him off his feet, leaning over the football-headed boy with puckered lips.

"Oh, Arnold. Gimme some sugar..."

A head of cabbage struck Helga in the side of the head. She dropped Arnold to the ground and looked out over the audience, furious.

"Who threw that?"

"Er, sorry Helga," said Sid.

Helga blinked and stared down at her classmate. She was sitting on top of the jungle gym. A red kickball, which had struck her in the head, was rolling away across the playground in front of her. The adoring audience, Arnold, the deafening thunder of screams and applause - all gone. Helga's daydream floated away with the breeze, replaced by the reality of recess.

"Watch out Sid, she might jump at ya!" Stinky shouted. Stinky, along with several other kickball players, watched Sid nervously as he approached the jungle gym and looked up at Helga.

"You okay?" Sid asked hesitantly. "I guess that was a bad kick, huh?"

Sid kept a few paces away from the jungle gym, just in case Helga decided to leap down at him.

"Yeah, whatever. Just don't do it again, nose boy!"

"Of course Helga, of course -"

The school bell rang out across the playground. Sid breathed a sigh of relief and ran back towards the school doors with his classmates. Helga leaped down from the jungle gym, about to join the rest of the fourth grade class, when she decided it was an opportune moment to pay her respects to the the object of her deepest affection. After the last of her classmates disappeared inside the school, Helga raced behind a nearby dumpster and pulled out her golden locket.

"Oh Arnold, my love," she whispered as she traced her fingers over the locket's photograph. "Object of my deepest, most private pre-teen dreams! How I long to shout my love from the rooftops, through the streets, and tell the world how I feel. You are the rope pulling me from the quicksand of fourth grade life, the beacon guiding me through the dense fog of my girlish emotions. You are the muse that molds my passions to poetry and sculpture.

"Why, without you, Arnold, I never would have won this contest! I never would have had such a beautiful football-shaped shrine to send into the competition! My humble shrine was but an awkward imitation of your magnificant features, but none of the other contest entries stood a chance against it! It was your flaxen locks, your unusually small blue baseball cap, Arnold, that-"

Helga paused and narrowed her eyes. A heavy wheezing sound came from the dumpster behind her. Why did Brainy always have to interrupt her during her most tender moments? Helga threw a fist back without looking – years of practice made her aim precise - and socked Brainy in the face.

"Helga?"

Helga gasped, leaping up from the hiding place where she was crouching. She stuffed the locket back under her dress and stepped out from behind the dumpster. It was her love: Arnold.

Arnold stared at Helga and held his nose due to the adjacent dumpsters. "How come you're always crouched down behind stuff?"

"None of your beeswax, _Arnoldo_. Now what do you want?"

"You're late to class. Mr. Simmons sent me out here to look for you."

"Fine," said Helga as she dusted herself off. "Alright already, I'm coming!"

Arnold was about to follow Helga back towards the school doors when he heard wheezing coming from the dumpster. He pulled himself up to peer over the dumpster's edge and found Brainy tangled in the trash inside.

"What are you doing in there, Brainy?"

Brainy blinked through his cracked glasses.

"Uh... something."

Arnold extended a hand and helped Brainy clamber his way out of the dumpster. The two of them returned to Mr. Simmons' class as they trailed behind Helga. Arnold always wondered why Helga seemed to disappear around corners and crouch behind objects during lunch and at recess, but he got the feeling that trying to figure it all out would give him a headache.

Helga was definitely a strange girl.

XX

The front door of the Pataki residence burst open as Helga walked inside, flinging her backpack on the floor. Helga had spent most of the day at school thinking about her art contest triumph – in between her daily allotment of Arnold daydreaming, of course – and now she needed to give the Caulfield Academy of the Arts a phone call.

"Hey Olga," her father called from the kitchen.

"It's Helga, dad."

"Right, right, Helga. Take out the trash, will ya?"

"No time, Bob! Maybe later!"

Helga raced past the kitchen and up the stairs, ignoring the indignant noises coming from her father as she went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. The art contest submission pamphlet was clutched in her hand, as well as the letter she had opened on the bus.

Helga looked at the letter again. She would have to travel to the art show and awards ceremony if she wanted to get her prize – she imagined a trophy, or perhaps a pile of money. That was no problem, however; she would just have to take the bus. Her parents would have no interest in taking her, not to mention that Helga didn't want them involved in the first place.

Helga wasn't entirely sure where the Caulfield Academy was located, but she knew it was outside the city, which was a good thing. She did not want the wrong people seeing her Arnold-shaped sculpture. Helga picked up her phone and dialed the number printed on the bottom of the submissions pamphlet.

"Caulfield Academy of the Arts," announced a wispy-voiced woman who picked up after a few rings.

"Yes, hello. This is Helga G. Pataki. Winner of your art contest, first place."

The voice on the other end of the phone was silent.

"Uh, well," continued Helga, "I was calling to ask about my prize for winning the contest. It doesn't say anything about it on the submissions form."

"The prize?"

"Yeah, you know - the cashola, the big payout. How many greenbacks are we talking about here, lady?"

"A prize? You're expecting a cash prize? Hold on a moment."

Helga listened as the woman on the other end of the line began to talk to someone else. Their conversation was faint, but after a moment, Helga heard several distinct voices burst into laughter. She frowned. What kind of a deal was this? Helga Pataki is a first prize winner, she thought to herself – she should be rolling in dough! Maybe not in the millions, but enough to finance a few months worth of Jolly Olly purchases would be reasonable enough.

"There's no prize, sweetie," said the woman after she finished laughing. "I mean, beyond the awards ceremony."

Helga ground her teeth at the news. The phone's plastic casing creaked ominously as her fist tightened. "Are you _kidding_ me here, lady? You know how much money I spent on postage when I shipped that stupid shrine through air freight?"

"Sorry, nothing I can do."

Helga groaned. Her excitement at winning the art contest was already beginning to dissipate. Still, prize or no prize, at least she was being recognized for something. It was a nice change of pace. She had one last detail to clear up.

"Alright, fine then. What about the awards ceremony? The pamphlet says it's in the Academy of the Arts auditorium next week – am I supposed to bring anything? Prepare a speech or something?"

"Oh, that's not where it's being held."

"That's what it says on the pamphlet," said Helga.

"What competition year is that pamphlet for?"

Helga stared at the papers she was holding. She frowned at the sight of the date printed in a corner.

"Um – five years ago?"

"We've changed a few things since then," the woman said. "Our arts competition has gotten much bigger than it used to be. Children from many school districts compete in it. The academy sets up an art show to display all the entries in the contest, and then an awards ceremony is held at the end of the show, where the top three winners accept a special certificate and give the browsing guests an explanation of their work.

"The art show is a very big deal," the woman continued. "Highly publicized, lots of donors for school arts funding in attendance. Even the mayor will be there this year! We used to hold it at the Academy, but nowadays we host it at the winner's school."

Helga felt her mouth go dry.

"You what?"

"The art show will be at your school. You'll get to show off your little football-shaped sculpture at P.S. 118, sweetie. In fact, the art show will be set up over there tomorrow afternoon. Only one day until all your classmates get to see what you made!"

XX

Arnold twitched, dropping his checkers piece just as he was about to make a move against his grandfather. Phil noticed his grandson's strange tic.

"What is it, short man?"

Arnold paused for a moment. The boarding house was silent, save for the ticking of a wall clock.

"I dunno, Grandpa. Did you hear a girl screaming? Like it was coming from down the block?"

Phil shook his head. "Can't say I did, Arnold. Maybe I'm not the only one who needs to get my ears checked!"

Arnold laughed as his grandfather mussed his hair affectionately. After picking up his checkers piece again and giving the board a quick look, he made a move against his grandfather, who threw his hands into the air after losing three pieces in quick succession. Arnold decided that the scream had probably just been a figment of his imagination.

But if it wasn't, somebody was definitely having a bad day.

XX

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_**Notes** - That's it. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Since this my first story for this show, I'm interested in seeing if other fans dig it or not, so please leave a review - I respond to all of them. _

_Also, I do have the entire story pretty much planned out at this point, so don't worry, it won't be orphaned. Put me on author alert if you want to keep following it - if I had to guess, I'll probably be updating once or twice a week, and it will be maybe 6 or 7 chapters in total. Thanks!_


	2. Damage Control

**Damage Control**

XX

Helga raced down the block as fast as her feet could carry her. After the harrowing phone conversation with the lady from the Academy of the Arts, Helga had rushed out of her house before her parents could say a word about her leaving – not that they usually did.

Helga had tried to withdraw her entry from the art show, but the lady had told her that her beloved shrine was temporarily property of the Caulfield Academy of the Arts, at least until the art show was over. The lady had told Helga that too much was riding on the show - too many potential donors, too much publicity - to risk withdrawing the first-place entry. Apparently, Helga had forgotten to read her submissions form closely enough. She couldn't bear to think about what would happen if the whole school saw her shrine. What had she been thinking? Helga imagined her most closely-held secret, plastered all over the headlines of the school paper. _This Just In: Arnold Laughs at Helga's Ridiculous Love!_ All because of a little fine print.

Rows of houses passed Helga in a blur as she got her second wind, turning a corner, leaping over a group of children playing jacks on the sidewalk, finally approaching her destination, the only place she could think of going. She leaped up the front steps and pounded on the door. A moment passed while Helga caught her breath, until finally the door opened.

"Ah," said a well-dressed man as he looked down from the doorway, "Phoebe did not tell me that the two of you had a-"

"Coming through!"

Helga pushed her way past Mr. Heyerdahl, bounding up the stairs two at a time on her way to Phoebe's room. The door was open just a crack. It flew aside as Helga burst into the room like a pack of wolves were snapping at her heels. Slamming the door shut behind her, Helga sank down to the floor as Phoebe looked up from her desk, surprised by the sudden intrusion.

"Pheebs!"

"Yes, Helga?"

"I got an emergency! I know I said that sculpture I entered into the contest wasn't important, but, well, okay, this is a little embarrassing, I know we always talk about it with euphemisms, but I gotta come clean here! I make these shrines to Arnold in my closet sometimes, they're shaped like his head, usually made out of common household items, things you can buy in the store, it's no big deal really, but Dr. Bliss said I should enter the art contest and I thought it'd be a good idea to send one of my Arnold shrine sculptures in and it won first place, but I just called them on the phone and there's gonna be a big art show at school tomorrow and everybody's gonna find out my darkest secrets and Arnold's going to laugh at me and my life will be utterly ruined and-"

"Um, Helga?"

"What?"

Phoebe took advantage of the break in Helga's breakdown to point at her bed on the opposite side of the room. Helga turned to see what her friend was pointing at. Much to her horror, Gerald was sitting up in the bed and staring at her.

"Oh, hey Helga."

Gerald removed a pair of headphones from his ears and turned off the Walkman he had been listening to.

Helga gulped loudly. "What are you doing here?"

"Me and Phoebe had a little study session. I was taking a little break and listening to some of her music. Cool tunes by the way, Phoebe!" Phoebe blushed at the thumbs up Gerald gave her.

"Did you hear what I said to Phoebe?" asked Helga.

"Say what?" Gerald pointed to the headphones. "I must have missed what you guys were talking about. What's up?"

Helga barely managed to restrain a sigh of relief. Disaster was narrowly averted. If Gerald found out about her secret, there was no question that Arnold would discover her deepest, most humiliating feelings within minutes. And then he, his grandparents, and all those weirdos at his boarding house would probably gather around their kitchen table and laugh endlessly as Arnold rejected her on the phone. Or something like that, Helga decided.

"Nothing is up," said Helga. "Nothing is up at all. Phoebe and I need some private time, tall hair boy. So, if you don't mind," she continued as she regained her composure, stood up, and opened Phoebe's door, "please be so kind as to _scram_!"

Gerald glanced at Phoebe, who shrugged apologetically and nodded.

"Sheesh, Helga. No need to be all testy! I'll call you later, Phoebe."

"Please do!"

Gerald sauntered out the door, giving Helga a parting nod which was cut off as the door slammed shut. Helga listened for a moment to the sound of footsteps descending down the stairway outside the door; once she was satisfied that she was alone with her friend, Helga turned back to Phoebe.

"So anyway, you gotta help me!"

Phoebe held a pencil to her pursed lips as she considered Helga's problem. "I don't know, Helga – it's quite a predicament. You couldn't just withdraw from the contest?"

"No, it's in the fine print - they got me by the neck here, Phoebe! They've got too much wrapped up in the art show, and they can't let go of their first prize entry on such short notice. I mean, I know their little show would be nothing without the fruits of my artistic labors holding it together, but criminy!"

"So what do you want me to do?" asked Phoebe.

Helga pulled up a chair beside her friend and wrung her hands together, trying to think of a solution to her predicament. She was relieved that Phoebe was willing to help her out. But then, Helga knew she could always count on Phoebe to lend a hand when it came to problems arising from this particular closely guarded romantic secret.

"Well, Phoebe, the only thing we can do is make sure that football-shaped shrine of mine doesn't get paraded around in front of the whole class. Much less in front of Arnold. So we're gonna have to wait around after school tomorrow, until that art academy comes to set up their little show, and then we grab my sculpture and high-tail it outta there before anybody sees us! You'll have to give me some cover, make sure nobody catches me red-handed while I'm lugging that thing around. Sound like a plan?"

Phoebe wondered how her best friend got herself into these kinds of predicaments. How Arnold didn't already know exactly what Helga felt about him, Phoebe couldn't even begin to guess. She put her pencil down with a sigh. Once again, it was up to Phoebe to keep the frayed pieces of Helga's tattered psyche from falling completely apart.

"You can count on me, Helga."

XX

Kicked out of Phoebe's house by that pink-bowed pest. It just wasn't right. Gerald shook his head emphatically as he sat down at the kitchen table in Arnold's boarding house, still annoyed by the incident. Helga and Phoebe were best friends, true, but he and Phoebe had a lot of studying to do! Gerald felt robbed.

"What's wrong?" asked Arnold. His friend had just arrived at the boarding house, and they were about to begin a game of checkers. Gerald shook his head again as gathered up his checkers pieces.

"I was over at Phoebe's house, studying, you know? And Helga just barges in there like Wheezin' Ed's right behind her and kicks me out so she can talk to Phoebe. _Privately_." Gerald emphasized the word with finger quotes.

"What was so important that Helga needed to kick you out to talk about it with Phoebe?"

"Don't ask me man. She was goin' on about something, but I had headphones on."

Arnold raised an eyebrow noncommittally – the behavior sounded pretty much on par for Helga. Their checker board set up and ready to go, Arnold let his friend take the first move as his grandfather came back with snacks.

"Here you go, boys. Milk and cookies. How's it going there Gerald?"

"Pretty good sir," said Gerald as he made his move, leaning back in the chair and grabbing a cookie while he waited for Arnold to take his turn.

The creak of the refrigerator door opening announced Oskar's arrival in the kitchen. "Hey Grandpa," he whined, "what's with the lack of selection in here, huh? Where are my pickles?"

"I didn't go to the store yet, Oskar. Give it a rest, why don't ya."

"Hey, come on now, what am I going to eat? What kind of a boarding house is this?"

Grandpa Phil sat down as the fierce checkers competition raged, massaging his temples. He grabbed a few cookies for himself and unfolded a newspaper to read. After a moment, Phil stared over the top of the paper at the two players.

"So, you two gonna be going to the art show tomorrow?"

"What art show, Grandpa?"

"It's in the paper here," Phil said as he pointed out an article. "Folks have been talking about it around town for a while now, as a matter of fact. It's a big regional contest, pretty big deal. They're holding it at your school for some reason. Looks like your little friend with the one eyebrow won first place, Arnold!"

Arnold picked up the paper and looked at the article. Helga winning first place in an art competition? He had to admit he was a little surprised. Although, when he thought about it, she did seem to be writing and doodling in her notebook all the time at school. Perhaps Helga was more of a creative soul than one would guess at first glance.

"An art show, eh?" asked Oskar as he peered over Arnold's shoulder. "Back in the old country, everybody said I was a pretty creative guy. Ehehehehe!"

"Uh, Grandpa," said Arnold as he continued to read the list of finalists, "did you see who won second place?"

"Why, no I didn't, short man. Who won?"

"Arnie."

"_What?_"

A spray of cookie crumbs shot across the table as Phil grabbed the paper back from his grandson. He looked at the list; sure enough, Arnold's strange cousin was the second place winner.

"Oh, wonderful. We're gonna have to give that little weirdo a place to stay while he's here for the show, I suppose. Family obligations and whatnot."

Oskar frowned as he munched on a piece of lettuce he had found after rummaging in one of the refrigerator's bins. "Come on now, family - it's kind of overrated if you ask me!"

A shrill voice pierced through the ceiling from upstairs. "What did you say, Oskar?"

"Uh, nothing Suzie, nothing. Don't worry about it."

Arnold sullenly moved a checkers piece as he looked at the board, thinking about having to deal with his annoying cousin again. Having Arnie in the boarding house was bad enough, but Arnold didn't know if he could stand any more antics between Arnie and Lila.

"Maybe we can send him to another boarding house," Oskar suggested.

Phil shook his head. "Can't do that to family. Even if they're creepy. You're just gonna have to hang around him all day so I don't have to deal with him, short man!"

"He's always sniffing," Oskar complained, showering flecks of lettuce onto the kitchen table as he watched the checkers game. "It's like he has a bunch of boogers or something."

Gerald, who had been leaning back in his chair, lost his balance as he burst into laughter, shooting a jet of milk out of each nostril. The chair clattered to the ground, sending Gerald sprawling across the floor along with a stream of milk.

Grandpa stared at the scene incredulously. "Hey Arnold."

"Yes, Grandpa?"

"Go get the mop."

XX

Now that she had visited Phoebe and made sure she had her friend's support in dealing with the Arnold-finding-out-about-her-true-feelings crisis, Helga was starting to feel better. She opened the front door to her house. In the entryway, a familiar set of travel bags lay slumped on the floor in front of her. Helga felt her good mood promptly disintegrate.

"Do I hear my little sister coming home?"

Olga Pataki appeared from the kitchen, rushing forward and embracing her little sister before Helga had time to object. Bob and Miriam appeared behind Olga as Helga tried to wriggle free, gasping for breath.

"Helga, I'm so proud of you!"

"Proud? What are you talking about?"

"I'm proud of my little sister winning such a prestigious art contest, silly! Why do you think I came here on such short notice?"

Helga felt like a boulder had just dropped into her churning bowels. Her family knew about the contest. How this had happened, Helga had no idea – she had never mentioned the contest to them, and she had gotten the contest results straight from Harvey the mailman's hands without her parents knowing about it. If Helga's school was hosting the art show, perhaps Mr. Simmons had called her family to congratulate them. It did seem like something Mr. Simmons would do, what with his insufferable optimism and enthusiasm.

"Mr. Simmons called us," said Bob.

Helga nodded absently. "Oh."

"Oh, I'm very much looking forward to seeing your artwork at the art show tomorrow afternoon, Helga!" exclaimed her older sister, hands clasped in joy. "Helga, the artiste!"

"Um, you guys don't have to come," said Helga. "It's really no big deal. I mean, fourth grade artwork, who wants to see that, am I right?"

Helga's father gave her a forceful pat on the back that would have sent food shooting out of her mouth, had Helga been eating any food. "Nonsense, Olg – Helga. We're all going to this art show so we can laugh at all those chump classmates of yours that lost! My youngest daughter, first place in something. Never thought I'd see the day!"

Helga's unibrow sank lower on her forehead. "Thanks, dad."

"Congrats, honey," said Miriam as she gave her daughter a hug and a vague smile. "It's getting a little late, you know... maaaybe you should be going upstairs." She paused to let out a hiccup. "Getting some sleep. For your big day tomorrow, um... so you're well rested!"

"Yeah, I guess."

Helga dashed up the stairs to her room after deciding that the amount of attention she was getting from her family was a bit unnerving. As she shut her door, safely concealed in the dark shadows of her bedroom, Helga breathed a sigh of relief.

She hadn't told her parents about the contest because she assumed they couldn't care less, but it looked like she had been wrong. Not only that, but Helga wasn't sure how her family would interpret their daughter's prize winning sculpture if they noticed its striking similarity to a certain football-headed classmate. Not that they would be seeing it at the show tomorrow. The shrine would be safe in Helga's hands before anyone at P.S. 118 could gawk at it. She would make sure of that.

Helga knew her parents – Big Bob in particular – would try to stop her if she told them she was going to steal her own entry from the art show. Bob didn't like quitters. Too bad, Helga thought. He would just have to be disappointed.

Of course, all of it depended on whether or not tomorrow's shrine extraction operation was a success. Helga was getting used to stealing incriminating evidence of her love for Arnold out from under the boy's nose, but she was glad Phoebe would be helping her out. She threw herself on her bed, lying on her back. The sun was beginning to set, and the tree outside her window cast shadows through the blinds which danced on the ceiling, roiling like dark storm clouds. Helga thought about tomorrow with a heavy heart.

"Pheebs, don't fail me now!"


	3. Operation: Whatever

**Operation: Whatever**

XX

Sunlight poured in through slits as Helga began to wake, squinting through her crusted eyelids. The alarm clock screamed like a banshee on the end table until she slapped it across the room. It was the morning of the art show. Helga stretched her arms out with a yawn. Last night had done quite a number on her.

Helga tried to forget about last night's dreams of public humiliation, Arnold pointing and laughing at her, Principal Wartz revoking her award and giving first place to Olga. _Helga old girl,_ she thought to herself – _today is the day of action. Just keep your head on straight, and everything will work out._

The night before, Helga had set the alarm clock to go off a little early so she wouldn't be in a hurry to get to school today. She grabbed her journal from her dresser drawer and began to make a few notes, still struggling to wake up. Helga liked to write a little bit about her dreams, perhaps jot down a few scraps of poetry; sometimes her half-waking state was her most creative time.

After finishing her writing, Helga placed the journal on her dresser and rolled herself out of bed. She stumbled across the room, half-walking and half-crawling on the floor until she opened her closet door. Inside was a simple, makeshift substitute shrine to Arnold. The real one was currently being held hostage by the Caulfield Academy of the Arts, but Helga needed some kind of replacement sacred object on which to focus her attention. Still in her pajamas, Helga turned on the Christmas lights surrounding the crude altar and prostrated herself before it.

"Oh Arnold, hear me now," she began to chant, "guide me in my quest to steal your sacred sculpture before my classmates find out my deepest feelings for you! Give me the strength to undo my horrible mistake, and I will never let your sacred image leave my closet again! Except when I need to clean it or add a few feathers or something!"

Helga writhed on the ground for a moment, lost in a paroxysm of pious passion. Finishing her worship at the altar of Arnold, Helga stood back up, closed the closet door, and walked over to her phone. She still had a few minutes left before she needed to begin getting ready for class, and she decided she would give a certain someone a piece of her mind. Helga picked up the phone and dialed a number.

The phone rang for a long time, but finally someone picked up. "Hello?" came a female voice.

"Hey, Dr. Bliss? It's Helga."

"Oh, hello Helga. It's a little early to be calling me at home, don't you think?"

"Um, sure. Do you remember how you told me to enter that art contest?"

"Oh yes. I'm glad you did, Helga."

"Well, guess what? I won first place."

"Helga, that's wonderful-"

"I won first place by sending in the three foot tall shrine of Arnold's head that I keep in my closet."

The voice on the other end of the line was silent.

"And they're holding an art show at my school," continued Helga, her voice steadily rising, "where my shrine will be displayed for everyone to see. I'll be a laughing stock! But don't worry, I'll be taking care of things, no thanks to you. Competing in an art contest, huh? Some idea that was! What am I paying you for, anyway?"

"Helga," replied Dr. Bliss, "you're not paying me."

"Oh, sure. Use reason on me, why don't ya!"

A sigh came from the other end of the line. "You know, Helga, I suggested you enter the contest, but I didn't tell you what to enter. You were the one who decided to send your shrine to Arnold in as your entry. I wonder why you chose to do that?"

"I dunno! It was my best work. Nobody could turn that thing down, it's a total winner. What are you getting at, doc?"

"Well, I find it interesting that you took something so personal, so secret, and made it so public. I wonder if you're feeling ready to let Arnold know how you feel. Maybe, consciously or not, you _want_ Arnold to see how you feel?"

Helga felt her anger dissipate a little. Perhaps Dr. Bliss had a point. Helga remembered her first appointment with the psychologist, when she had opened up about how she felt about Arnold; it had been a liberating experience. But then again, the thought of Arnold – along with her whole class – seeing the very embodiment of her unrelenting obsession did _not_ make her feel liberated. Quite the contrary. It made her feel like she wanted to hurl.

"No, I don't think so, Dr. Bliss. I think I just made a big mistake. And now I have to go fix it."

Helga slammed the phone down on the dresser beside her journal. Her next session would probably be a bit awkward, but never mind that. Helga needed to vent a little. Now that she had gotten it off her chest, it was time for her to get ready for the day ahead.

XX

"Now, class, could we please settle down? I have an important announcement to make!"

Mr. Simmons' pleas fell on deaf ears. His own ear was nearly stabbed by the pointy end of a passing paper airplane, but the fourth grade teacher weaved sideways, narrowly avoiding an earlobe paper cut. The class was being very rowdy today; probably because it was the end of the week, he supposed.

"Please, children! Let's all get it together, okay?"

Everyone in the class ignored him except for Arnold, who sat attentively at his desk with a smile. Mr. Simmons jumped at the sound of a piercing scream. Judging by the way Rhonda had just jumped out of her desk, he had to assume that Curly was invading her personal space again. Mr. Simmons noticed that Helga was being unusually quiet despite the behavior of the rest of her classmates. He hadn't seen Helga throw a single spitball at Arnold, although she was staring at him about as intensely as she usually did.

Another paper airplane passed by overhead, and Mr. Simmons decided enough was enough.

"_Children!_"

The class fell silent, shocked by his outburst.

"Thank you, children. Isn't that peace and quiet just wonderful?" Mr. Simmons beamed at his students, who stared blankly in reply. "As I was saying, I have a very special announcement to make. As I'm sure some of you are well aware, seeing as it's been all over the local news, but the Caulfield Academy of the Arts has been running an art competition for the past few weeks. And guess that - they'll be hosting a very special art show right here in our school!"

The blank stares continued, with the exception of a nod from Arnold. Mr. Simmons soldiered on. "And what's more, our very own Helga G. Pataki submitted the first place contest entry!"

A number of students gasped as Helga sank a little lower in her seat.

"Helga?" laughed Harold. "An artist? That's a good one!"

"I assure you Harold, Helga is a very talented young lady. I always look forward to reading her heartfelt poetry about-" Mr. Simmons noticed Helga staring daggers at him, which derailed his train of thought. "Um, anyway, the Academy will be arriving here at P.S. 118 later this afternoon to set up their art show, at the end of which we'll get to hear a special speech from Helga and the other winners. I know it's a Friday, and you're all raring to go frolic in the park and what have you, but I'd just love it if you could all attend the show and give Helga your support! What do you say, kids?"

The class was silent. Somewhere outside, a dog barked.

"There's going to be free food."

The silence was broken as Harold leaped up from his desk and let out a whoop of excitement. No one else gave any response.

"I'll give you all extra credit?"

The class exploded in cheers and applause.

XX

Helga shut her locker door and looked around for Phoebe as a stream of classmates passed her by. She was in no hurry to catch the bus. Before leaving in the morning, Helga had told her mother that she needed to stay after school to do some work, and that she would catch them later at the art show. She wasn't even sure if her mother heard her, or if either of her parents would care if she failed to come home before the show, but Helga made the excuse just in case. Now, she and Phoebe would have to wait around until the Caulfield Academy arrived to set up the art show.

"Why hello Helga," said Lila as she walked by. "I'm just ever so happy that you got first place in the art contest. You must feel wonderful!"

"Yeah, I'm on cloud nine," scoffed Helga.

"I reckon you must be one of them artsy fartsy types," said Stinky, joining the conversation. "Me, I never had no knack for that sorta thing. My auntie tried to teach me whittlin', but it was no use. I just kept accidentally whittlin' my finger!"

"Oh Stinky, that's just delightful," laughed Lila. "Well, goodbye Helga. I suppose I'll see you at the art show!"

"Whatever."

Stinky and Lila headed for the school doors as Helga caught sight of Phoebe approaching. She gave her best friend a wave. Phoebe caught up as Helga exited the school doors, taking the sidewalk instead of getting on the school bus.

"I think we should hang around the dumpsters by the playground until we catch these jokers coming to set up the art show. Once they get here, we can-"

Helga turned a corner, about to enter the school playground to reach the dumpsters, when she ran smack into Arnold. Both of them knocked each other to the ground. Helga stared at her secret love, feeling tender emotions welling up in her heart.

"Arnold! I..."

She smacked herself in the face.

"I mean, watch where you're going, football head!"

"Sorry Helga. Mr. Simmons asked me to put away all the kickballs on the playground before I went home." Arnold picked his fallen books up off the ground and stood back up. "Congratulations on winning that contest, Helga! I'm really looking forward to seeing what you made at the art show this afternoon."

"Yeah, you can count on that," laughed Helga. "Come on, Phoebe. Let's go hide behind the dump-" she noticed Arnold staring and paused. "Er, play some hopscotch. Later, football head!"

Arnold did not answer, as he was already sprinting towards the school bus in order to flag it down before it left. His undulating cornflower hair put Helga into a trance, swaying in the wind as her beloved ran away from her. Helga sighed dreamily. Someday, Arnold would know her true feelings.

But definitely not today.

XX

Phil came down the boarding house stairway, having just finished repairing the mold damage to the wallpaper in Mr. Hyunh's room. It was a thankless job - literally, as Mr. Hyunh had been watching a soap opera the entire time and never said a word when Phil finished – but at least it wasn't Kokoshka's wallpaper. Phil knew that instead of giving him any thanks, Kokoshka would be bothering him about the groceries yet again. And if Phil heard that smarmy laugh one more time...

"Hey boys," he said, noticing Arnold and his cousin Arnie at the kitchen table. Arnie had arrived at the boarding house early that morning. "Thought you two were gonna go to that art show?"

"We're just about to, Grandpa. It starts in half an hour."

"Gotcha," said Phil. He opened the refrigerator, looking for a bite to eat, and found it was completely empty. Much to his surprise, Phil found himself wondering if maybe Kokoshka's incessant whining actually had a point for once.

"Do you want to come with us Grandpa?"

"Oh, I dunno Arnold," said Phil as he eyed Arnie, who was staring into space and blinking in a very unnerving way. On the one hand, Phil was happy to hear that Arnie had won second place in the contest, but on the other hand, it didn't mean he wanted to spend more time around the boy. There was no way around it – Arnie was just strange.

"You know, I think Pookie might get angry if I'm out for a night on the town and miss her dinner, Arnold. I guess I'd better stay here." Phil snickered to himself; it was an excellent excuse.

"That's right!" exclaimed Pookie, appearing at the kitchen's entrance. "I'm making raspberry cobbler for dessert, too. You'd better not miss it!"

"Oh boy," Phil muttered to himself. "That backfired on me."

"What backfired, Grandpa?"

"Oh, I'll be backfiring all night after I finish that raspberry cobbler, Arnold."

Everyone in the kitchen looked around in surprise at the sound of a quick drum roll and cymbal splash.

"What was that?" asked Arnold.

Grandpa pointed upwards. "Probably Ernie playing on his new drum set."

Arnie stood up from the table, standing stock still for a moment, and then pointed at the wall clock as Arnold and his grandfather watched him.

"It's time to go."

"Alright, Arnie." Arnold got up and headed towards the door with his cousin.

"Do you think we'll see Helga tonight," droned Arnie.

"I don't know. Probably."

"_Gnnnk,_" snorted Arnie. "I hope so."

Arnold felt himself shudder involuntarily. Whether it was the thought of Arnie and Helga together, or just the thought of Arnie in general, he couldn't be sure.

Arnold was shocked to find himself hoping Lila would not be the art show. At least not if she was going to be hanging on Arnie the whole time – the sight of them just got on his nerves. He also hoped that Gerald would keep him company instead of spending too much time talking to Phoebe, which he seemed to do at social events sometimes. With his cousin hanging around, Arnold needed whatever distractions he could get.

XX

Helga peered out from behind the dumpster. Several vehicles had just pulled up to the front of the school, one of which looked like a large moving van. It was time for their daring art heist to go into effect. Partly because their target had arrived, but partly because the stench wafting out of the dumpsters was starting to get nauseating.

"Alright Phoebe, it's go time."

"Okay. One moment, please!"

Phoebe unzipped her backpack and pulled out what looked like an extra set of clothing. As Helga watched, her friend began putting on a new shirt and a pair of pants over what she was already wearing. A flashing glint caught Helga's eye as she looked down at Phoebe's open backpack. A fencing foil was sticking out of it.

"What the heck, Phoebe? Why do you have a sword? And what's with the outfit?"

"We're going undercover, aren't we?" asked Phoebe as she fastened a black mask to her face. "I had the costume from that party Rhonda threw, so I thought I'd put it to use! It is almost exciting, isn't it?" she said with a laugh as she pulled the sword from her backpack and gave it a few test swings.

"What are you, a ninja?"

Phoebe frowned at the question. "Just because of my Japanese ancestry, you assume I am a ninja?"

"Um, no? Because of the ninja mask and the sword, Phoebe. Doi!"

Phoebe frowned. "Oh, I see. Well, no, I'm not a ninja - I'm a swashbuckler!"

Helga rolled her eyes, although she was wondering if she should have brought her own costume. Maybe the two of them hadn't planned the heist very well.

Helga took another glance at the vehicles parked in front of the school. Several burly men were unloading tables, plaques, and large cardboard boxes on dollies. They pulled the dollies up the front steps and wheeled them into the school. Helga figured the boxes had to contain the art contest entries for the show. There was no way to tell which one was hers; they would have to sneak into the school and wait until the boxes were opened and the artwork put on display.

"Helga, maybe we should have been hiding inside the school this whole time," said Phoebe as she watched the unloading. "How are we going to get inside without being seen?"

Helga smiled as she looked up at the school's roof. She had gotten enough experience from sneaking into Arnold's boarding house to know how to infiltrate a building without being seen. That, and it helped to watch a few spy movies.

"We'll be dropping in. Now come on, Phoebe." Helga pulled her friend from behind the dumpsters, dashing across the playground and past the jungle gym towards the utility ladder that led to the school's roof. "It's time to implement Operation – uh – okay, what were we calling this operation again?"

"I don't believe we talked about calling it anything, Helga."

Helga felt a bit disappointed. Having a cool name seemed like one of the most important parts of the operation, but it was too late for that now.

"Rrrgh. Whatever. It's time to steal my art back!"

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Thanks for all the reviews so far guys, they've been very encouraging. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next up: the art show!  
_

_Kind of amusing actually, I just re-watched the episode "Curly's Girl" yesterday and there is an art show very briefly at the beginning of that episode which I totally forgot about. So I guess maybe P.S. 118 hosts a lot of art shows, hehehe._


	4. En Garde!

**En Garde!**

XX

The sun beat down on the concrete sidewalk as Arnold and his cousin walked down the block towards P.S. 118. Arnold would have preferred to get a ride, but as they were getting ready to leave, his grandfather had cheerily suggested that the two of them take a nice afternoon walk. Arnold got the distinct impression that Grandpa was just avoiding having to spend more time with Arnie in the car. Not that Arnold blamed him.

"So, Arnie, um – how have things been on the farm?"

"It's been okay. _Gnnk_," snorted Arnie. "Last week was very exciting. Abigail decided to run into the cornfield with my garden hoe in her mouth, and I had to run after her. She was hard to find. It took two hours and forty-seven minutes to find her. I counted on my watch while I looked through the corn stalks."

Arnold felt himself die a little inside.

"So," he asked after realizing from the sudden awkward lull in conversation that Arnie had finished his story, "tell me about your contest entry. What did you make that won second place?" Arnold didn't really want to know the answer, but at least for the moment, listening to his cousin talk seemed less uncomfortable than walking down the block in a silence punctuated only by Arnie's loud snorts.

"It's a surprise," said Arnie. "But I made it from one of my collections."

Arnold wasn't sure if that meant lint or something else, but he decided not to press the subject any further. He was beginning to wonder if walking silently was actually a better choice than conversation when a sunny voice piped up from across the street. Arnold looked to his left and smiled; Lila was running across the street after carefully checking for traffic, even though there were no cars in sight.

"Arnie, you're here!" she said as she walked in step with them. "Oh, and hello Arnold."

"Hi Lila!" Arnold replied.

Arnie blinked both eyes out of sync, which seemed to be some kind of reply as well.

"I'm just ever so excited to see you again, Arnie! How have things been on the farm?"

Arnie repeated his pig story verbatim as Arnold wondered just how long it took to get to his school. He had walked to school before, but he didn't remember it being so far away. As Arnie finished the story, Lila snaked an arm around him, but he gently pulled back from her embrace.

"Lila, I told you that I like you, but I don't like you like you."

"I'm sorry Arnie - I suppose I just forgot."

As he watched the two of them walking side by side, Arnold was shocked to find that he almost wanted Helga around. He didn't like the way Helga talked about Lila sometimes, but then Helga seemed to sympathize with Arnold's view of Lila and Arnie as a couple. He restrained a laugh as he imagined some of the scathing comments that Helga might make about the pair. Arnold didn't know why she had to be so mean all the time, but sometimes he did find her barbed comments amusing.

Arnold shook his head. Wishing he had Helga's company on the way to the art show, of all things - he got the feeling that today was going to be a weird day.

XX

Big Bob Pataki stared down at his stainless steel Chronolux wristwatch. The gold-plated second hand trudged its way laboriously through another revolution around the watch face. Clutched in Bob's other hand was a handful of beeper-related pamphlets, which he planned to hand out at the art show in order to educate Helga's classmates about the benefits of purchasing beepers exclusively from Big Bob's Beepers. Bob liked to think almost anything was a business opportunity if you looked at it the right way – the art show was no exception. Assuming Bob would make it to the show in the first place.

"Come on, Miriam! We're gonna be late! What in the world do you need to spend half an hour in the bathroom for?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" shouted a voice from up the stairs.

Olga gave her father a hug, elated in her anticipation of the upcoming art show. "Oh daddy, aren't you excited? My little sister, a budding Frida Kahlo! What do you think, daddy?"

"Yeah, sure."

Bob had to admit he had never gotten the impression of his younger daughter being an artistic type. She always seemed a little rough around the edges, not quite as refined as her older sister. It was an attitude that Bob often liked, a take-no-prisoners kind of attitude, but Helga never put it to good use. Perhaps that would change if she was starting to apply herself. Bob imagined putting Helga's talents to work in making extravagant beeper commercials, or perhaps decorating the store for holidays and special events. Maybe having an artist for a daughter wouldn't be such a bad thing.

"I knew a creative soul lurked behind that prickly exterior," said Olga. "I just knew it."

Releasing her father from her hug, Olga took one last glance around the living room. Party favors had been set up on the living room table, and a large banner was hung over the room from one wall to the other. One of the walls, which was otherwise completely covered in Olga's past certificates and awards, had a discolored blank space where an award had been recently removed. Olga was generously donating the space to display the prize Helga would no doubt be receiving within hours.

"It's a good thing Helga had to stay after school today," Olga remarked. "She'll be so excited when we all come back from the art show together and she finds our little surprise!"

"Huh?" said Bob as he glanced up from his watch. "Yeah, sure Olga. Miriam, get down here already!"

Miriam raced down the stairs, having finally finished primping up. "Alright, I'm here. I'm here. Okay. Now where did I leave my purse? Hmmm..."

Exasperated, Bob tapped his foot as Miriam spent several more minutes in the kitchen looking for her purse. After fishing it out from where it had been lodged below the refrigerator, Miriam joined her family as Bob hurried them out the door.

"Wait a minute now... maaaybe I should get a smoothie for the road..."

"Miriam!"

XX

Inky gloom stretched beyond the limits of the penlight's illumination. Helga held the light in her mouth, inching her way along the HVAC ducts they had slipped into from the roof. The ducts crisscrossed their way through the the ceilings of P.S. 118. Behind her, Helga heard Phoebe's occasional high-pitched grunts of exertion as she followed close behind.

Phoebe's fencing foil brushed against the sheet metal walls of the duct from time to time, causing a screeching sound that made Helga shudder. Cobwebs brushed across Helga's face as the two of them turned a corner in the duct. Helga shuddered again; there seemed to be many things in a ventilation shaft that could make one shudder.

"Ugh, sneaking around in this air duct is disgusting," complained Helga. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but nope!"

"What do you mean?" asked Phoebe.

"Uh, nothing."

"To be honest, I find myself beginning to enjoy this," giggled Phoebe. "It's like I'm a covert operative!"

Helga glanced back at her friend, who was wearing her swashbuckling costume and black mask. Phoebe did seem to be enjoying herself. Helga supposed it was a good thing that _somebody_ was enjoying this ordeal, at least.

Ahead of her, breaking through the hazy blackness of the duct, Helga saw a square of light emanating from the floor. She looked down as they approached the square; it was a removable grille that looked down on the school's main hall. Various brawny workmen were milling around in the hallway, setting up tables and putting out the artwork for the show.

It was not long before Helga caught sight of a workman passing by with her sculpture. The workman stopped at a table almost outside of Helga's range of vision, placing her precious sculpture on a table covered in red velvet cloth which looked a little more prestigious than the others. But not prestigious enough, thought Helga. Not only that, but she felt her blood boil as she watched how carelessly the workman was handling the sacred monument to her heart's desire.

"Phoebe," she said as she moved aside to make room for Phoebe to look down through the grille, "I just saw my sculpture. It's at the end of the hall, I think I-"

Helga fell silent as another figure stopped in the hallway beneath them, chatting with several important looking people in suits and ties, two of whom looked like they were representatives from the Caulfield Academy of the Arts. It was Principal Wartz.

"Oh, yes," said Wartz as he strolled along, "I've always felt it was very important to foster an environment of student creativity. And as principal, I've always been at the forefront of that..."

Helga turned to Phoebe as Wartz droned on. "Phoebe," she whispered, "we don't have much time left. They've got everything pretty much set up, and everybody's gonna be pouring in down there any minute. You gotta figure out how to distract Principal Wartz so I can grab that sculpture and high-tail it outta here. Got any ideas for distractions?"

In the faint light that came up through the grating, Helga was able to make out an unusual glint in Phoebe's eyes. To Helga's surprise, Phoebe removed her glasses and used the flat edge of one of its arms to loosen the screws in the grating. Her friend's resourcefulness bordered on unsettling. Phoebe grinned as the grate came undone.

"Distracting!"

Helga gaped as her masked, costumed friend leaped down from the air shaft onto the floor of the hallway behind Principal Wartz. The sound of Phoebe's shoes hitting the floor caught his attention, and the pudgy man turned around to find the strange figure standing behind him.

"Where did you come from?"

Helga watched, paralyzed, as Phoebe stood rooted to the spot.

"What's your name?" Wartz asked.

"My name?"

Phoebe seemed to be at a loss for words. Just when all seemed lost, however, she ripped her sword from its scabbard and whipped it through the air in a stunning flourish. As Wartz stared, transfixed, Phoebe darted around him. Before he could turn around, she whipped the foil through the air with an audible whistling sound and lashed Wartz in the rear end. He jumped into the air as the well-dressed guests he had been accompanying gasped in shock.

"My name is Inigo Montoya!"

Phoebe ran over to a nearby fire alarm and pulled it, racing down the hall as alarms rang out over the school. Wartz,who had been gingerly rubbing his lashed rear, began to run after Phoebe in a considerably slower pursuit.

"Stop! Someone stop that interloper!"

Various other people in the hall followed hesitantly after him, not sure exactly what was going on. Several people went outdoors at the sound of the fire alarm, and Helga watched as the hallway cleared out. This was the best opportunity she would get.

"Phoebe," Helga muttered to herself as she carefully dropped down from the ceiling duct, "you totally rock."

Towards the end of the hall, standing on top of the red-cloth table, Arnold's shrine stared impassively at Helga as she approached it. She could hear Wartz yelling faintly from farther away in the school, somewhere in the vicinity of the auditorium. Helga wrapped both of her arms around the sculpture and edged it off the table, turning around as she back to make her way towards the school's main doors.

The sculpture was large and ungainly, since Helga had made it to rest in a closet and hadn't been anticipating carrying it around. As Helga trudged awkwardly down the hall, her vision partially obscured by her cargo, she began to realize that she hadn't thought about what she was going to do once she rescued her art from the Academy's clutches. Before she could begin to worry, however, the front doors opened.

Helga peered out from around the sculpture and felt her heart drop into her stomach.

"Arnold?"

XX

A group of students stood on the sidewalk and gawked at the sight of a black limousine that had just pulled up in front of P.S. 118. It wasn't the limousine that caught their attention so much as it was the sight of Rhonda Wellington Lloyd climbing out of its spacious interior, followed by her parents. The three of them were dressed in style – Rhonda's 'style' being her usual black pants and red shirt, but Rhonda had always insisted it was a stylish outfit. Her classmates did not know enough about fashion to argue the point.

"Boy howdy Rhonda!" exclaimed Sid. "That's a swanky ride!"

"Why thank you, Sid." Rhonda said as she straightened out her red shirt, making sure she looked as presentable as possible. "This _is_ a high profile art show, and my parents decided it was best to make a statement when we arrived."

Brooke Lloyd squeezed her daughter's shoulder as Rhonda beamed up at her. "That's right, sweetie."

While Rhonda had enjoyed the limousine trip and her impressive arrival, her parents had actually invited themselves to the art show. She knew the two of them fancied themselves to be art connoisseurs, and were probably looking forward to giving out some art criticism. Not to mention they desperately wanted to introduce themselves to the mayor. Rhonda loved both her parents, but sometimes they could be a little much.

Rhonda looked over her classmates gathered on the sidewalk in front of the school. A couple of them had parents along, but most were alone. Many of her fourth grade classmates were there, but a few were missing.

"Well guys, it's about time for the show to start," said Eugene. "Should we go in now?"

"Why not?" asked Rhonda. "We're not waiting for anyone, are we?"

Arnold, who had been sitting on the school steps while he chatted with Gerald, shook his head. "No, somebody pulled a fire alarm a few minutes ago. And they said they were still setting things up in there and getting ready for the show. They let in the contest winners in early, so they can go over the awards ceremony procedure and everything."

"Oh. So _that's_ why Helga's missing."

"Yeah, I guess. My cousin Arnie just went in there too. We were a little late getting here. He won second place in the contest."

The group let out a collective groan as Arnold mentioned his cousin, with the exception of a certain pigtailed redhead whose eyes widened dreamily at the sound of Arnie's name.

XX

The figure standing in front of Helga had wavy, cornflower-colored hair. Well, cornflowerish. He was also wearing a hat, but it definitely wasn't a blue one. Helga was irked by her case of mistaken identity.

"Oh. It's you, Arnie."

"Hello Helga," Arnie replied.

"What are you doing here?"

"Didn't you hear. _Gnnk_ - I won second place."

Helga made no reply. She felt a rising sense of panic; if Arnie was here, the rest of her classmates were probably about to arrive as well, and Arnold had to be close by. It was far too late to risk walking straight out the front door.

"Um, I gotta go Arnie."

"No wait," said Arnie as Helga began to slip away in another direction. "Remember when I told you I loved you, Helga? I still feel that way. You're even nicer than lint."

"That's great, really. Thanks for that!"

As Helga backed away from Arnie, she considered going out the side door that led into the school playground, but she realized there was no reason her classmates wouldn't be coming in through that entrance as well. Not to mention that she'd have to pass through much of the art show, and perhaps a very angry Principal Wartz, in order to get there. Helga sensed her options dwindling away by the second.

"You must feel the same way, Helga. Look at your contest entry." Arnie snorted loudly and pointed at her sculpture. "Clearly you modeled it after me. You can admit it, Helga."

"What? Are you nuts?"

"There's no other explanation, Helga."

"This isn't a sculpture of you, idiot! It's a sculpture of your football-headed – uh, I mean, football! It's an homage to football, okay? I just can't get enough of that sport."

Arnie pursued her like a bizarre juggernaut as she backed away, looking around wildly. Where to go, where to go... Helga began to walk faster down a side hallway as she sensed Arnie following her. Things were not working out the way she wanted at all. How was she supposed to get rid of Arnold's freak cousin?

"Leave me alone, _other_ football head," hissed Helga.

Arnie continued to pursue her, his hat's plastic rotor spinning as he passed under an air conditioning vent. "Please, Helga." He blinked one eye, then the other. "You're the main ingredient in my recipe of love."

Helga gritted at the strain of hefting her sculpture as she tried to pick up speed, having no idea where she was going. Somehow she needed to give Arnold's cousin the slip. She wished Phoebe would come back and distract Arnie for her, but for now, she was on her own.

"Helga, wait..."

"Go look at some art! Criminy!"

Arnie was clearly not taking the hint. Helga was amazed at how some people could blindly persist in their obsession with another person without having any idea of how badly they ended up looking to that person. _Some people are just their own worst enemy_, Helga thought to herself.

As she tried to escape from Arnold's football-headed doppelganger, speed-walking as fast as her heavy sculpture would allow, Helga realized that there was no way she could outrun her pursuer. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard the school's front doors opening. The doors were well out of view by now, but several of her classmates' familiar voices floated from down the hall as they chatted with each other. There was no way out now. After a moment of sheer panic, Helga realized that her only option was to find somewhere to hide inside the school. But with Arnie following her, how could she slip away unseen?

"Hey Arnie?"

"Yes, my love."

The two of them stopped in a side hallway as Arnie listened to her . From the looks of it, Helga assumed that the Academy's less impressive pieces were set up in this hall, farther away from the main part of the show; even in her dire situation, Helga was unable to resist scoffing at a few of the more ridiculous pieces around her. _Don't get distracted old girl_, she told herself. The art show's first guests were milling around farther away in the school, but the sounds grew closer, and Arnie was still waiting for what she had to say.

"Look, you obviously don't know how to woo a girl, so let me give you some advice here. You need to get her gifts, Arnie. You gotta _show_ her how you feel!"

Arnie gazed blankly at Helga.

"How do I show you how I feel?"

"Well, uh, just to start," said Helga as she made something up on the spot, "if you really want me to consider liking you, maybe you should get me a present or something. Like some food! Go see if they have any appetizers, will ya?"

Arnie considered Helga's request – for a moment, Helga thought he might have sensed her ruse, but finally he gave a slow nod of understanding. Helga barely kept herself from smirking. What a rube!

"Alright Helga. I'll be back soon, don't worry."

Helga breathed a sigh of relief as her pursuer finally left, leaving her alone in the hall. She only had a few moments to choose, but she needed somewhere to hide before Arnie – or anyone else – showed up and caught her. Helga opened the first door she could find, marked 'Utility Closet', and slipped inside as the school began to grow louder with the sounds of newly arriving guests.

A single overhead bulb illuminated the utility closet with a faint glow as Helga flipped a wall switch. It was musty, cramped, and filled to the brim with junk, but it would have to do. She placed her shrine in a back corner of the closet. Making note of a good spot behind some piping where she could hide unseen, Helga decided to turn the light off again, so as not to attract the attention of anyone passing in the hall. She returned to the hiding spot she had noticed, groping blindly and grimacing as she smacked her knees into the piping. Now, thought Helga as she settled down into a cobweb-filled corner, she just had to wait.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Okay, so I said this chapter would be the art show, but this is more like the start of it. The entire art show was originally within one chapter but I thought it was too long compared to the others and divided it into two chapters, of which this is the first. This story will end up being about 10 chapters actually, not 6 or 7 as I first guessed - I always seem to underestimate the amount of writing it will take for me to tell a story. I should just stop making wild guesses when I'm starting something, hehe.  
_

_Either way, hope you guys liked it!_


	5. No Show

**No Show**

XX

Principal Wartz gingerly applied an ice bag to his rear end as he sat lopsidedly on an examination table. The school nurse had just inspected him for injuries – she seemed very unwilling to do it at first, but Wartz had insisted, as attending to injuries was a part of her duties. Fortunately, Wartz had incurred no permanent damage. Actually, the nurse had explained in a condescending voice that he didn't even have a bruise, but Wartz thought his excruciating pain was evidence enough of how serious the injury was. He hadn't noticed the pain earlier, while he was chasing his masked assailant, but it had flared up right after he lost track of her.

"I cannot believe we have anonymous students sabotaging the art show," said Wartz. "This isn't a good sign, I can tell." Wartz sighed as he listened to the activity outside in the hallway; the art show had begun without him. He had been hoping to welcome the parents, students, and other guests, giving them a little overview of the school and its achievements as the show began. So much for that.

"How do you know it was a student?" asked Mr. Simmons. Wartz had dragged him into the nurse's office for an emergency faculty meeting. Mr. Simmons noticed that Principal Wartz was the only other faculty member present besides himself, and arguably the nurse.

"Very small person," said Wartz. "Could have been a midget, I suppose."

"I believe they like to be called dwarves, Principal Wartz."

"What?"

"Dwarves," repeated Mr. Simmons. "I think it's a more sensitive term."

"That's ridiculous. Dwarves are mythical creatures, Simmons."

Mr. Simmons exchanged a look with the school nurse, no longer sure whether he was right or wrong. He scratched his neck nervously. Maybe they preferred to be called little people. But then his students were little people, or even Principal Wartz for that matter, so that couldn't be it, could it?

"Anyway, before she assaulted me she referred to herself as Inigo Montoya. I'm going to have to look that up in the school records."

Mr. Simmons raised a finger, about to say something, when the door of the nurse's office creaked open and temporarily filled the room with the sounds of the bustling art show. Sheena timidly poked her head inside the office.

"Um, hi! I just wanted to say hello to my aunt." Sheena waved to the school nurse. "Hi Margie!"

"Hello Sheena!"

Sheena stepped into the office, wondering why her teacher and principal were both in the room instead of mingling at the art show. She stared at Principal Wartz, who was still holding the ice pack on his bottom.

"What happened, sir?"

"Sheena," said Principal Wartz, "I am sorry to inform you that there's been an attack in the school."

Sheena gasped. "Oh no!"

"Yes, yes indeed. I was just assaulted by a masked assailant who was holding a longsword, which was used to stab me while my guard was down."

"Stab?" asked Sheena. "Sword?"

Sheena's eyes rolled back as she fainted. Mr. Simmons rushed forward and caught her right before she hit the ground.

"Oh my!" he said, holding his comatose student.

"She does that sometimes," said Margie as she took her niece from Mr. Simmons. "Sheena does not like violence. She had some trouble at the school's performance of _Romeo and Juliet_, if you remember."

Principal Wartz did remember. Sheena was one of the ones who had dropped out of the part of Juliet, if he recalled correctly. Not only that, but she had fainted briefly while watching the death of Mercutio. It was a good thing they had gotten the Pataki kid to take Juliet's role instead. She had done a good job, too. Judging by her victory in this art show, Wartz decided she must be quite the budding artist.

"Principal Wartz!"

"Sorry?"

Wartz broke out of his reflection and looked at the school nurse, holding a still unconscious Sheena.

"Could we use the examination table to lay Sheena down until she comes to?"

Wartz frowned as he shifted the melting ice pack.

"But I'm injured!"

XX

The art show was in full swing as guests poured in. Parents, students, and miscellaneous important-looking people crowded the classrooms and hallways of P.S. 118, having traveled from near and far to gawk at prepubescent emotions channeled through canvas and plaster.

Phoebe walked down the school's main hallway, having stowed her sword and costume in a safe place. Paintings, sculptures, metalwork, collages, and various other works of art were set up around her. Phoebe glanced through the doors of several classrooms where even more art displays had been put together, looking for familiar faces. Finally, she reached a room where most of her fourth grade acquaintances were gathered.

"Hey Phoebe," said Gerald, "where have you been?"

"Oh, just around. Have you seen Helga?"

"Nope."

Phoebe was glad to hear it. Helga hadn't told her what exactly she had planned to do with her shrine, but Phoebe assumed she was taking it home. Or perhaps she was just hiding it in the school somewhere, as Phoebe had done with her swashbuckling costume.

"Check out that one!" laughed Harold as he pointed to a nearby abstract painting. "It looks like somebody put a bunch of paint all over it!"

"That's how all paintings work, buddy," said Gerald as he patted his classmate on the back.

"Well yeah but... I dunno, I'm confused!"

Phoebe thought the painting was a compelling expression of a young artist's frustration and alienation, very reminiscent of Jackson Pollock, but she did not want to get into an argument. Harold, Stinky, and Sid continued to point and laugh at various pieces of artwork around the room, although Stinky seemed to be entranced by a painting of a woman who was lying in a grassy field and staring at a house in the distance. Phoebe smiled at Stinky's awe-struck expression as she took her time looking quietly at each display. She enjoyed all of them, although she particularly liked a surreal but inspiring piece entitled _Ode to Pigeons_.

Phoebe's admiration for the talent on display around her was tinged by just a hint of enviousness. She was an intellectual – the smartest person in the school, in fact, although Lila had an unsettling habit of stealing her answers in class – but she knew that she was not the most creative person around. Her poetry was lacking, for instance. And while Phoebe saw herself as very emotional in her own way, she knew she didn't measure up to her best friend when it came to expressing that intangible, immeasurable, yet powerful language of the heart. Phoebe understood Helga's reasons for withdrawing her entry, and supported her unquestioningly, but a part of her wished Helga had kept her sculpture in the show.

Arnold sidled up to Phoebe, a look of concern on his face. "I haven't seen Helga around. Do you think she might have gotten nervous about the show?" he asked.

Phoebe gulped. She felt a little nervous about lying, even if she was covering for her best friend.

"I'm sure she's alright."

"Actually, I haven't seen Arnie around, either. I think I'll go look for him."

Arnold left the classroom and went back into the hallway, while Phoebe and Gerald decided to tag along with him. As she went through the door, Phoebe narrowly avoided smacking into the considerable bulk that was Helga's father. She let out a small gasp of surprise.

"Oh, hey, Helga's friend," said Bob. "You seen my daughter anywhere?"

"No sir."

"Hmm." Bob looked around for a moment, and then remembered the handful of pamphlets he was holding. "Hey, how about you pass these out to all your little friends? You fourth graders use beepers all the time, right? I dunno, maybe your parents do?"

Olga, who had been staring at each exhibit in turn and clapping her hands together with delight, looked back at her father. "Oh, this reminds me of the time I created an award-winning mural portraying the lives of inner city children for my advanced art class. Do you remember, daddy?"

"I sure do, Olga," laughed Bob. "Now let's go see where that little sister of yours has _her_ exhibit set up."

It wasn't long before the Pataki family arrived at the end of the main hallway. In front of them sat a table covered in a plush red velvet covering. A cream-colored card resting on top of the table identified the exhibit as _Shrine to the Sublime._ Helga's name was printed below the name of her entry.

However, the entry in question was nowhere to be found.

Bob narrowed his eyes at the empty tabletop as he felt his initial perplexity changing into a rising anger. "What's the deal here?" he asked. "All these other chumps get their artwork set up, but my daughter's first place exhibit is just a blank table?"

"Strange," said Arnold as he stared at the table along with Phoebe and Gerald. He pointed to an adjacent table. "I can't find Arnie anywhere, but there's his entry." The work of art Arnold was pointing to was entitled _Collage of Ingredient Labels I Read While I Was Eating Breakfast on My Farm_. The title was an accurate description of the work.

"Mm mm _mm_," said Gerald as he shook his head in shocked disapproval. "That thing got second place?"

"It's called art critics, kid," said Bob as he slapped Gerald on the back.

Rhonda and her parents arrived at the end of the hallway after pushing their way past the crowd. Rhonda joined the other onlookers who were staring at Arnie's piece, and looked like she was about to make a comment when her father spoke up.

"Look at this, dear," he said as he drew his wife closer and pointed to Arnie's exhibit. "That is a fascinating work. I daresay the artist is making a pointed commentary on the monotony and hopelessness of rural life."

Stinky overheard the comment and crossed his arms indignantly. "Well I never!"

"I'm pretty sure my cousin just likes reading ingredient labels," said Arnold. Rhonda's father gave him a haughty sniff in reply.

"Hello, students!"

The crowd gathered around Helga's empty display table turned at the sound of Mr. Simmons' voice. Their fourth grade teacher waved at them as he arrived with Principal Wartz at his side. Some of the students raised their eyebrows at the sight of Wartz, who seemed to be clutching his rear end and limping exaggeratedly as he walked. Mr. Simmons gave him what looked like an exasperated eye roll, but when Wartz returned his glance, the fourth grade teacher quickly changed his expression to something more sympathetic.

"Children, don't be alarmed, but we recently had a masked intruder attack Principal Wartz right before the art show started. He's been sitting on an ice pack in the nurse's office for a little while now."

"I was viciously jabbed in the right buttock!" Wartz exclaimed angrily.

Harold, Sid, and Stinky burst into a guffaw of laughter – even Arnold and Gerald seemed to be barely restraining themselves – but Phoebe felt a little guilty. She certainly hadn't meant to slap Principal Wartz with her fencing foil _that_ hard.

"That's just terrible," she said.

"Thank you Phoebe. Thank you for your concern." Principal Wartz glanced at the empty red velvet table around which the group of students and parents were gathered. "What's going on here? This looks like Helga Pataki's exhibit."

Bob threw up his hands in exasperation.

"You tell us, buddy!"

XX

Helga crouched uncomfortably in the school's utility closet, pink bow drooping, clothes matted to her skin in the oppressive heat. Apparently the closet did not share the air conditioning that had been coursing through the rest of the school. Arnold's shrine was propped up across from her hiding spot. It stared at her as if laughing scornfully at her pathetic predicament.

Helga sighed. _What a mess you've gotten yourself into this time_, she thought. Stuck in a cramped closet, all alone, and she still had to drag the stupid shrine home. She began to wish she had spent more time planning her little escapade with Phoebe when she had stopped by her friend's house the other day, instead of spending five minutes talking about it and then shifting to the subject of the latest _Babewatch_ episode.

Beyond the piping that concealed her from view, outside the closet doorway, Helga could hear the muted thumping and echoing of the art shows' attendants as they walked back and forth. The show was still in full swing from the sound of things. Helga would have to wait until the show ended and people cleared out if she wanted to escape the school without anyone noticing her.

"Oh, Arnold," she cried, pulling her golden locket from her shirt. "Give me your strength..."

XX

Things were falling apart.

After searching through the school's classrooms for the missing first and second place winners, Principal Wartz had returned to Helga Pataki's empty exhibit table just in time to see Mayor Dixie strolling through the school's front doors with several other high-profile figures and journalists in tow. All his planning, all his high hopes that the art show would help gain new funding for the school – Wartz could hear it all flushing down the drain, gone with his missing first place winner and her entry.

"Hello, Mayor Dixie," said Principal Wartz, extending a clammy hand.

"Hello Principal. I am excited to be here at the Caulfield Academy of the Arts annual regional art competition." The mayor peered at the table behind Wartz, who was feebly trying to block it with his portly figure. "I see the first prize table there. Where is the artwork? And what about our little winner?"

"Well, the thing is," stammered Principal Wartz, "at the moment she's, uh-"

"We got no idea!" Stinky interrupted.

The crowd part at the sound of a loud snort. Arnold jumped a little as Arnie appeared beside him. Lila appeared from among the crowd, the first time Arnold had seen her during the show itself, and gave Arnie a beaming smile and a wave.

"Do _you_ know where Helga is?" Arnold asked his cousin.

The mayor, Principal Wartz, and the rest of the crowd watched the strange boy in rapt silence. Arnie blinked ponderously and mulled over the question.

"She ran away with her sculpture."

Miriam tottered briefly at the news. "Oooh boy..."

"Hey, where's all the free food anyways?" shouted Harold from the crowd.

"Harold," said Mr. Simmons, "I was wrong about the show having free food, but that's not really what's important right now"

"This art show really bites," exclaimed Stinky. The crowd began to murmur and disperse while Rhonda's parents introduced themselves to Mayor Dixie, who looked supremely indifferent.

Arnold felt a little disappointed as he looked at the empty table upon which Helga's entry would have been displayed. He had really been looking forward to seeing what Helga had made. Of course, the awards ceremony was coming up in the auditorium in a few minutes. Maybe she would still show up at the last second. Arnold noticed Helga's father, looking a bit red in the face, and felt a flash of sympathy for his missing pink-bowed classmate.

XX

"Unbelievable."

"Oh, don't be mad, daddy!"

Bob Pataki growled as he stood with Miriam and Olga in the hallway outside the school auditorium, a crowd of parents and children streaming out around them. The awards ceremony was over, and his younger daughter had not shown up. He held a certificate in his hand, given to him by a Caulfield Academy of the Arts official. It would have been presented to Helga in front of an audience of adoring fans, had she been present at the ceremony.

The other finalists were nothing, Bob thought – that weird football-headed kid in second place with his board of newspaper clippings or whatever they were, and then that brawny kid in third place. Okay, the brawny kid had an impressive painting, Bob admitted, but there was no way that kid was in grade school. And while he hadn't actually seen his daughter's entry yet, he felt absolutely certain it would blow the other two contest entries out of the water. The judges agreed with him, after all. His daughter _had_ won first place.

Bob Pataki groaned at his misfortune. He had taken the time to go to the art show, even leaving work an hour early, only to have his daughter blow off her own moment of glory. Bob assumed Helga had some bizarre, deep-seated reason to avoid the show – his daughter _was_ seeing a psychologist, after all – but Bob had no patience for Helga's shenanigans. He knew that this wouldn't happening if Olga had won first place. Olga knew how to handle the responsibilities that came with success.

"Are we ready to go, B?" asked Miriam. "I'm sure Helga's at home."

Bob nodded, but he was not quite ready to go yet. Even if the art show was a bust, Bob knew that not everything was lost. The post-show party preparations were still set up at their house. Helga was probably already there with her entry by now. Big Bob decided that even if his daughter's embarrassing no-show had disappointed him, he would still get the chance to show off the Pataki family's achievement, whether Helga liked it or not. Helga would thank him later, once her classmates gave her the respect she deserved as a Pataki. Not to mention he could hawk some beepers. He looked down at the grade school kids milling around him in the hallway as the art show came to a close.

"Alright, listen up kids!" shouted Bob.

The hallway felt silent as Helga's classmates turned to him.

"Helga's probably back at our place by now. I got my Hummer parked outside - we're having a victory party at my house, and you're all invited!"


	6. Escape

**Escape**

XX

Screaming children poured out of Big Bob's Hummer as he pulled into his garage. As short as the drive was from P.S. 118 to his house, Bob was glad to be out of the vehicle after listening to the childrens' constant chattering. The windows of his house had been dark when he pulled up, which did not bode well for his daughter being home.

Bob unlocked the garage's inner door for his daughter's classmates, who poured through the narrow laundry room and into the house in a squirming mass. He followed behind them with Miriam and Olga and pointed the guests to the living room, where refreshments had been set up. Bob turned on the living room lights. It was becoming apparent that his daughter was not home.

"Man," exclaimed Sid as he looked around the living room "Helga's house sure looks pretty nice. Sure isn't anything like my place."

"Mine neither," Stinky agreed.

Bob smirked at the two kids. "It's what you get when you're the Beeper King."

"Well gosh, I figured you just got a beeper or some such thing, Mr. Pataki."

Rhonda, who had been overhearing the conversation, had to disagree. " I don't know if I would have chosen _that_ wallpaper," she said as she looked around the room with a wrinkled nose.

"Alright kids, I'll get some music on in a minute. Help yourself to the food."

Bob left the living room and walked far enough up the stairs to see that the door to Helga's room was slightly ajar, and no light was coming from inside.

"Ol - Helga?"

There was no answer. Bob felt his temples pulsing with irritation.

_Where _is_ that girl?_

XX

She tried to run, but there was no escaping. Helga was lost in a stone dungeon, an endless maze, and every twist and turn led into another dim hallway that looked exactly like the one before. For all Helga knew, she could be going in circles.

Winding stone passages led Helga deeper into the gloom as her pursuer followed close behind, so close that Helga could feel hot breath on her neck. From time to time she risked a glance behind her. The pursuer changed its form at every glance; at one moment it was Arnold's shrine made flesh, the next moment her classmates howled in a gleeful mob, the next moment it was her family reaching out to grab her. Sometimes there was nothing behind her at all, but Helga knew that if she slackened her pace for just a moment, she would be caught.

After what seemed like an eternity, Helga burst out from one of the passages into a cavernous chamber. She instinctively felt that her pursuer was gone. Sputtering torches placed at various intervals in sconces along the walls gave just enough illumination for Helga to look around. The chamber was filled with tables – rows upon rows of tables draped in red-velvet cloth – and on top of each table stood her shrine to Arnold. Glittering, impassive eyes glared at her from each shrine, asking her what she was doing in the chamber.

In the center of the chamber's yawning expanse was a small pyramid. A temple. Helga approached the foot of the temple and looked up to the top, where rows of stone steps led to a pair of golden thrones. Arnold looked down from one of the thrones, and seated beside him, Lila looked down from the other.

"What are you doing here, Helga?"

Arnold stared down at the pink-bowed girl standing at the foot of his temple. The girl sank to her knees in supplication, and Lila whispered something into Arnold's ear with a giggle.

"Come on, Helga," said Arnold. "You've got to be tired of this."

Helga looked up.

"What do I have to do?" she asked. "These," she said as she motioned to the shrines scattered around the room, "these aren't enough? What else can I do, Arnold?"

Arnold gripped the sides of his throne and stared down from his temple with a smile. Lila was also smiling – her usual, ever so infuriating smile – as she leaned comfortably over in her throne and clutched Arnold's arm. Helga wished she could read Arnold's expression, see his innermost feelings, but he was too far. Too far to tell.

"Tell me, Arnold. What can I do?"

Arnold laughed. "You tell me, Helga."

Helga pulled her hair in frustration, feeling a wave of blistering anger come over her. Her emotions were coming to a boil. "But I don't know!" she yelled.

"Helga... you. Tell. Me."

XX

Helga woke up, drenched in sweat.

Propping herself against the wall as she cleared her mind of the strange dream, Helga realized that she was still in the utility closet. How she had managed to doze off, she didn't know, but it felt like a sauna. Arnold's shrine still stood across from her, its expression welcoming her back to the waking world. As Helga listened carefully, she noticed that the muffled footsteps and faint ghosts of conversation coming from the hallway outside were gone.

"Time to blow this popsicle stand, fake-Arnold!"

Helga grunted as she got up from her hiding spot, shaking her legs. They had fallen asleep along with her, and a thousand tiny pinpricks coursed through them as they woke up. She noticed cobwebs on her arms, but her body was still so sweaty that they stuck to her, matted like a film. Hot, stale air pressed down around her. The utility closet would be a terrible place for a popsicle stand, Helga mused.

The closet door creaked open as Helga glanced cautiously into the hallway. The hallway was no cooler than the utility closet; it felt like the air conditioning had been turned off. It was not empty, either; a couple of officials who looked like they belonged to the Caulfield Academy of the Arts were having a conversation farther down the hall, and a workman was packing up a table. The works of art were already gone, returned to the students, and the art show was clearly over, but they were still in the process of packing up and leaving. Helga had no idea how long the process would take, and she wanted to try to get home before she got in serious trouble with her parents, but what could she do?

Helga closed the closet door again and looked around inside. It was a utility closet, and the cramped space was filled to the brim with cleaning supplies and a few other boxes that looked like they had been thrown in for lack of a better storage area. A cleaning cart was backed into one corner of the closet, specially fitted to carry a mop and bucket, along with various fluids and sponges. A plan formed in Helga's mind as she stared at the cart. She knew that the school's art room was in the hallway outside, only a couple doors down from the closet. A number of old costumes from past school plays were stored in the room – Helga remembered _Romeo and Juliet_ with a dreamy sigh – and she could probably sneak inside the art room quickly once she left her hiding place. She wrung her hands together and cackled triumphantly. This would work.

XX

"What a fiasco," Principal Wartz muttered to himself as he left the bathroom. He looked around at the workmen hired by the Academy, who were carrying the tables out of the school. And they were doing it as slowly as possible, Wartz thought. Probably getting paid by the hour.

As he walked down the hall to his office, Principal Wartz cringed at the memory of Mayor Dixie's reaction to the awards ceremony in the auditorium. A first place winner who didn't even bother to show up, a second place winner who looked like he came out of an alternate dimension, and a third place winner who could have just escaped from Juvenile Hall. Wartz knew that the Academy's art show was a regional competition, many schools being involved besides P.S. 118, but since Helga Pataki had won, his school had been its focus. And Wartz would take the blame. Principals always got all the blame. So much for getting any help with the arts budget next year.

Lost in his self-pity, Wartz almost stumbled into someone coming from the opposite direction. He looked down at a cleaning cart being pushed by someone who looked like a school janitor, although the person was very small. Wartz could not make out the person's face, but a bushy mustache poked out from beneath a hat. Another very small stranger who Wartz did not recognize. He seemed to be running into a lot of small people today.

"Hello," Wartz greeted the newcomer.

"Er, howdy."

"Cleaning up after the show, I suppose? I don't recognize you - are you a new hire?"

"Uh, tha's about the gist of it, yep," said the janitor. "Ah'm off te purdy up them windows now, if'n ye'll excuse me, suh."

Wartz nodded. "Carry on then."

The tiny janitor tipped his hat politely at Principal Wartz and hitched up his coveralls as he pushed the cleaning cart towards the playground door. Wartz continued on his way down the hall and entered his office. It was hot inside the office, as it was all over the school, but Wartz didn't mind. He had turned off the air conditioning towards the end of the show to save money; even though it was a warm evening, every cent made a difference.

Wartz sat down at his desk and wondered if writing a letter of apology to Mayor Dixie could make things any better. Before he could grab a pencil and paper, however, his thoughts turned back to his meeting in the hallway.

"Wait a minute... _I'm_ the one who hires the janitors!"

XX

A blast of fresh night air hit Helga as she opened the door to the playground area. She felt like a sardine wriggling out of its tin. It was a wonderful sensation; Helga had been feeling claustrophobic after being stuck in the closet for so long, and while it was a warm night, it was better than being indoors. She was glad to be free.

Helga took off the workman's coveralls and false mustache that had been part of her janitor's disguise, flinging them to the ground along with her hat. She left the cleaning cart next to the door after pulling her sculpture out from its hiding place underneath the cart. As she left the playground and passed a pay phone, Helga decided to call her parents and let them know where she was. She wasn't looking forward to it, but she remembered how they had freaked out when she was missing on Thanksgiving.

"Hello?" came a gruff voice after Helga used the last of her change to make her call.

"Hey, Bob? It's Helga."

"Helga! Where in the world are you?"

"I'm calling from a pay phone."

"Why in the world did you think it was a good idea to skip the art show, little lady? You made a fool out of me! The freakin' mayor was there!"

"Dad, I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll be home in a while."

Miriam's voice came through the line more faintly. "Does she need a ride, B?"

"Tell mom I'm fine," Helga replied. "I've got a ride. Goodbye."

Helga hung up the phone with a sigh. She did not actually have a ride, but Helga didn't want to deal with her parents insisting on picking her up. What was more, she still wasn't sure how she wanted to deal with her family seeing the sculpture. Her father at least knew who Arnold was, and it was clear that Helga's sculpture was modeled after a football-shaped human head. Helga didn't know if that would be enough for him to make the connection. And she didn't know if there would be any consequences to her family figuring out her feelings about Arnold – maybe the worst that would happen would be having to hear cloying comments about love from her big sister. Either way, Helga wasn't sure if she was ready to see what the consequences would be.

The night air was unusually hot and muggy, and Helga began to feel miserable again as she trudged down the sidewalk in the direction of her neighborhood. Old buildings lined up against the sidewalk and stared down at Helga as she passed, their windowed eyes pulsing with yellow light. P.S. 118 disappeared from view behind her as Helga turned a corner and almost ran into a circular, wrought-iron trash can.

_I could just dump this thing_, Helga thought to herself. _It'd be easier to walk home, and it would solve all my problems._

The trash can sat patiently, its gaping mouth waiting to be fed. Helga considered the option for a moment, but something about throwing away the shrine seemed wrong. Blasphemous, even. Arnold's visage was far too sacred to dispose of in such a trashy way. She resigned herself to walking all the way home while lugging the shrine along, and was about to do just that when a familiar truck appeared down the otherwise empty street.

"Hey!" shouted Helga as she stepped closer to the road. "Hey you! Stop!"

Helga carefully placed the shrine down and stepped into the road, as close as she would dare approach without being run over. She waved at the ice cream truck, which looked like it was going to pass by for a moment, but it screeched to a halt at the last second.

An angry face poked out of the driver's side window, limp black hair topped by a white cap.

"Whaddya want, kid?" shouted the Jolly Olly man. "I'm not on the clock!"

"I just need a ride."

The Jolly Olly man's eyes seemed to bug out of his head.

"A ride? You want a ride, ya crazy clown? Ahaha! Ahahaha!"

"Come on, gimme a break!" said Helga. "It's not like you've got anything else to do." Helga wasn't actually sure if this was true, but she decided it couldn't hurt to take a wild guess.

"Hmm. Maybe ya got a point. Okay, fine, but you're riding in the back!"

XX

Bob Pataki slammed the phone down angrily.

"Well, is she okay?" asked Miriam.

"Yeah, she's getting a ride," said Bob. "I'm gonna give her a piece of my mind when she gets home. What kinda person wins first place, and then doesn't even want to accept an award for it?"

Bob picked up the certificate that had given to him by one of the Caulfield Academy of the Arts officials at the art show – the certificate that Helga should have accepted at the awards ceremony in the auditorium, had she been present. Bob looked over the certificate with a mixture of pride and aggravation – he got the feeling that he would get a headache if he tried to analyze his feelings too deeply. The pulsing music coming from the party in the living room wasn't helping either.

"Oh daddy," said Olga, "I'm sure Helga just felt a little skittish about appearing in front of an auditorium full of people! I'm used to it, after all, having won so many awards in my lifetime, but it must be a frightening thought for Helga!"

Bob nodded as Olga embraced him. "Hmm. Maybe you have a point there, Olga."

"We should make sure she knows how proud we are when she gets here, shouldn't we daddy? She'll be home at any moment. What do you think, mommy?"

Miriam grunted something unintelligible as she fiddled with a blender on the kitchen counter.

Bob put Helga's art show certificate away and picked up some beeper pamphlets before entering the living room, where his daughter's classmates were enjoying themselves and dancing to some music. Maybe he could get a few more beeper customers out of the evening. And once his daughter did come back, Bob thought, she'd better have that winning entry with her if she knew what was good for her.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Okay, so the Jolly Olly man is a little random, hehe, but I really wanted to try writing him as I think he's one of the funniest characters in the show. Also, I wanted Helga to have a little interaction with him, because I thought the two of them would be interesting together. He will show up more in the next chapter. That, and we will see what happens when Helga gets home. Thanks for reading!_


	7. Party with the Patakis

**Party with the Patakis**

XX

Inside the living room of the Pataki house, Helga's classmates were enjoying music and refreshments, along with a few other kids who had tagged along from the art show. Gerald stood by the punch bowl with several of his friends, talking about the show they had just left.

"I still can't believe Torvald won third place," he said. "I mean, Helga and Arnold's creepy cousin getting first and second place was weird enough, you know?"

"I reckon his tough exterior masks a deep ocean of right pretty emotions swirlin' inside of him," observed Stinky. The rest of the group stared blankly at him.

Lila sipped a cup of punch and thought fondly of Torvald's contest entry. "It _was_ surprising," she admitted, "but I thought it was oh so pretty. As was Arnie's entry, and I assume Helga's. I'm just certain they all deserved to win! Especially yours, Arnie," she said as she sidled up next to Arnold's cousin.

Arnie appeared indifferent to Lila's attention, but Arnold was visibly irked. He had been trying to start a conversation with Lila all evening, but Lila hadn't bothered to say more than a few words to him, unless it was a question about Arnie. Arnold left the group, deciding to find somewhere a little less frustrating to hang around for a while.

"What do you guys think Helga's entry was?" asked Sid.

The group grew silent for a moment, deep in consideration. It was a tough question.

"Maybe it was pink!" said Sheena.

"Probably a painting of a Fortress Mommy or something," muttered Harold.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What does that even mean, Harold?"

"Look, I dunno. Leave me alone already!"

A loud snort startled the group before anyone else could offer a guess.

"I saw it," said Arnie as all eyes focused on him. "It was a statue of me. I think she's starting to accept that we're meant to be together."

The group grew quiet for a moment as they stared at Arnold's strange cousin, some of them clearly disturbed by the image of Arnie and Helga together forever in love. The silence around the punch bowl was soon broken as the kids burst into bouts of raucous laughter. Lila, however, did not laugh. She had been trying to hook Arnie's arm in her own as he shied away from her, but she stopped and looked pensive after hearing his comment. She glanced thoughtfully at Arnold, who was chatting with some people elsewhere in the room.

Gerald noticed Helga's father walk into the living room and flagged him down before he could get caught up in conversation with anyone else. "Hey Mr. Pataki," he asked, "got any cheese at this party?"

Bob stared down at the boy. "Cheese?"

"Yeah, you know, cheese! Like, particularly that smelly French cheese."

"We don't have any French food here, kid," said Bob indignantly.

"How about finger sandwiches?" asked Rhonda. She tried to fight back against Curly, who was attempting to get a whiff of her hair, but Rhonda's love of finger sandwiches outweighed her urge to run away in disgust. She waited uncomfortably for Bob's answer.

"Look, I dunno what your parents feed you kids, but we don't eat that stuff here," said Bob. "You want appetizers, you eat those meat sticks I set up on the tray on the end table by the couch!"

"Chocolate?"

Bob looked down at a chocolate-stained child who was noticeably smaller than everyone else at the party.

"No, no chocolate either."

"Not even cocoa powder? Come on, you're killing me!" Chocolate Boy held his hands to his head and pulled his hair in desperation before running off aimlessly.

"Least they got some Yahoo sodas next to the punch," said Stinky as he took a sip from his bottle.

Arnold noticed Helga's father and returned to the punch bowl table for a moment to join the conversation. "Mr. Pataki, have you heard from Helga? Is she okay?"

"Yeah, sure, she's fine. She'll be here sooner or later. Now, Arnold right? Tell me, does your boarding house have an emergency beeper system set up?"

Gerald took a sip of his cup of punch as he watched Helga's father roping his best friend into a sales pitch. He had to stifle a laugh when Arnold glanced at him and rolled his eyes, taking advantage of a brief pause in the pitch while Bob opened up a pamphlet. Not a bad party, Gerald decided. Not bad at all. Although he was still itching to see what in the world Helga had submitted that could get her first place in an art contest. Gerald's cup was almost knocked from his hand as Rhonda and Curly ran by.

"Come on Rhonda," pleaded Curly, "just one sniff! I can smell your new shampoo - it's overwhelming me!"

"_Ugh!_ Get away!"

The two of them left the living room. Arnold looked like he was indefinitely tied up with Helga's father, and everyone else was involved in conversation, so for a moment Gerald was alone. He began to look around the room; the most noticeable decoration had to be all the trophies and awards decorating the walls, all of which seemed to belong to Olga Pataki. Gerald had heard Helga complaining about her sister on occasion, but then Helga complained about everyone. He could see why all the trophies might be annoying, but Olga had seemed very friendly at the art show. She had all kinds of interesting stories to tell too. Very sophisticated, Arnold might say. It certainly wasn't a word Gerald would use to describe Jamie O.

Most of Gerald's friends besides Arnold were still gathered around the punch bowl, but he was not interested in their current topic of conversation. He noticed Chocolate Boy rolling around on the couch, which was definitely going to leave a stain. Chocolate Boy had not been at the art show - Gerald wondered how he had even heard about the party in the first place.

The subject of Helga's mystery art piece crossed Gerald's mind again. Phoebe had to know what it was, Gerald thought. She was Helga's best friend, after all. He decided to look for her since she was not in the living room. Gerald walked into the entryway and glanced in the kitchen, where some additional refreshments had been set up, and found Phoebe rooting through Helga's refrigerator. She looked back at the sound of Gerald's footsteps and waved at him.

"I'm just looking for something more nutritious than meat sticks!"

"Gotcha," laughed Gerald.

Phoebe was not the only one in the kitchen. Helga's older sister was looking out the kitchen window. Olga gave Gerald a smile and a girlish waggle of her fingers before focusing her attention back to the dark street outside. He wondered if she was waiting for her little sister to come home. There was something sweet about the scene; they must get along really well, Gerald thought to himself. If only his relationship with his brother could be that close.

XX

City lights rushed by as Helga stuck her head out of the ice cream truck's side window. The Jolly Olly man had forced her to stay in the back of the truck, but he didn't seem to mind when she hung her head out of the window. It was freezing in the back, but the evening was more warm and humid than usual, so Helga felt the strange sensation of having a body that was half hot, half cold. She seemed to be having a lot of trouble with temperatures tonight.

"What's your name, anyway?" asked Helga as she pulled her head back inside the truck.

"Willie," answered the Jolly Olly man. "What's it to ya?"

"Hey, just asking, sheesh. So can I have one of these ice cream bars in the cooler?"

"Sure, if you got the cash."

Helga sat back against the ice cream cooler and thumbed her nose impudently towards the front of the van. She did not have any cash, the last of it having been used for the phone call to her parents. She stared at her shrine, wedged carefully in a nook on the other side of the van so it would not go flying if the vehicle took a sharp turn. Some of the paint had smeared on the shrine's face, probably from its stay in the sweltering boiler room. Now that it was in the back of an ice cream struck, ice crystals were beginning to collect on the multi-colored feathers attached to it.

_Hey all you hep cats,_ came a silky voice from the front of the van, _this is Nocturnal Ned, back to spin some sweet tunes your way. But before we start, I have a special dedication for this next song. It goes out to Helga Pataki. 'Helga, I saw your sculpture, and I know how you feel about me, do not deny our eternal love.' And that's from Arnold's cousin Arnie who loves Helga. Alright, dig it!_

"Uuugh," groaned Helga. As if this night couldn't get any worse.

"Was that for you?" Willie laughed. "One of your little kid crushes? Aaahahaha!"

"Aw, give it a rest."

Helga shivered and rubbed her arms to try to keep warm. She glanced out the van's open side window; only a couple more blocks until they reached her neighborhood. She was surprised that the Jolly Olly man had agree to even give her a ride, as crazy as he was.

"So why are you out driving around at night when you're not even selling ice cream?" she asked.

"It's either that or hangin' out in my apartment," Willie said. "Dad's always giving me calls about the job. And my dog's always giving me an attitude, see? Like he thinks I'm funny or something."

Helga began to wish she hadn't asked him anything.

"So I like to just cruise around, see? Enjoyin' the fresh air and all that. Otherwise there's no way I'd pick some punk kid up, but it's not like I got anywhere else I'm going." Willie glanced back into the back of the truck as he drove down an empty street. "So what's up with that crazy statue you got there, huh kid?"

"Just something I entered into an art contest."

"Looks a lot like that football-headed kid that's always there with all you punks when you buy ice cream. I had him along for some school career thing once. You know, the one with the blue baseball cap?"

"Yeah, I know."

Helga caught a glimpse of Willie smiling in the rear-view mirror. The sight was a bit terrifying.

"You got a crush on the kid or something?"

Helga ran her hands over her face and hung her head back in exasperation.

"Look, just don't tell anybody about this shrine, okay?"

"Hey, I gotcha. Willie can keep a secret!"

As he drove, Willie glanced at the rear view mirror and got a better look at the strange sculpture that the girl had brought along with her. He had to admit that the football-shaped totem looked a little similar to the kind of thing he might have created in his childhood. Fond memories of tortured poetry, midnight stalking, and frantic pleas to various gods crept into Willie's memory. His smile widened. Ah, the carefree days of youth.

"I guess that dedication on Nocturnal Ned's show wasn't from the kid you got a thing for, am I right?"

"Right."

Willie watched his young passenger from the front seat. She looked unusually forlorn – it was almost enough to make him feel guilty about forcing her to ride in the back of the ice cream truck. Almost, but not quite.

"You know," Willie said, "Somethin' I found out going through life, it's okay to be a little crazy. Some people don't mind, see? They just take ya whichever way you are. My dog, for instance. I mean, sure, don't get me wrong here, we don't get along _all_ the time, but he still loves me for who I am."

Helga nodded. She still felt uncomfortable being in such close proximity to someone whose psychological issues seemed to make hers pale in comparison, but perhaps there was a kernel of truth in what he said. Maybe the Jolly Olly man got a little sentimental when he wasn't dealing with kid customers.

"I hope you're right," Helga said.

XX

Phoebe munched on a carrot she had pulled from Helga's fridge, happy to find something other than the meat sticks and pork rinds that seemed to litter the rest of the house. She felt relieved, but not just because of the carrot. Gerald had been asking her what Helga's art show entry looked like, and Phoebe had almost backed herself into a corner by being too hesitant to lie. She had told Gerald she had seen the sculpture, but then she had to give him vague responses until he finally gave up on the conversation. Phoebe was used to keeping her friend's great secret, but Helga sure wasn't making it easy for her.

"Are you looking for her?" she asked Helga's sister, who was still staring out the window.

"I certainly am!" said Olga.

Gerald began to root through the refrigerator to find his own snack while Phoebe stood on her tiptoes to look out the window with Olga. She had been a little worried when Big Bob had brought them all to the house and Helga was missing, but she _had_ eventually called her parents to say she would be back. Phoebe wondered if she had hidden the sculpture at school.

"Say," Olga said, "can the two of you be my little confidantes for just a moment? I have a teensy little plan for my baby sister that I think she'll really enjoy."

"For real?"

Gerald closed the refrigerator, finding no cheese and realizing that he would find nothing else inside that could beat the meat sticks in the living room. Olga gathered Gerald and Phoebe closer to herself as she kept an eye on the window.

"That's right!" she said. "And it involves all your friends, too. Come closer and listen!"

XX

As she glanced out the window, Helga saw the familiar outskirts of her neighborhood passing by. They would be at her house in a moment or two, but she wanted to walk the last stretch - she was still unsure of how she wanted to deal with coming home.

"Hey, can you drop me off here?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure."

Willie pulled up to the sidewalk and stopped the ice cream van. Helga stood up, shaking out the tingling that had begun to course through her legs from sitting awkwardly on the floor of the van, and hefted her shrine to Arnold. She got out of the back of the van, closed the doors, and walked around to the side, waving goodbye to Willie as she trudged down the sidewalk.

"Hey kid," said Willie. Helga turned around. Looking down at her from the driver's side window, Willie shifted the van into gear and gave Helga a slight tip of his white cap.

"Good luck."

Helga stood for a moment and looked over her hefty shrine as the Jolly Olly van drove away into the night. Maybe Willie wasn't that bad, even if he was a total cheapskate for denying her a free ice cream bar. She began to walk down the sidewalk. The thick heat of the night and the exertion of carrying the shrine begin to warm her up again. The ice crystals that had formed on the shrine's feathers soon melted away.

It wasn't long before she reached the front of her house. The windows were dark, and the inside of the house was silent. Helga was surprised; if her parents were already asleep, it must have been even later in the evening than she had thought. She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, thinking about her options.

Climbing the tree outside her window and sneaking into her room crossed Helga's mind, but she laughed out loud at the thought of trying to get the heavy shrine up the tree. She also knew that the back door of the house would be locked and bolted if her parents had gone to bed. The front door seemed to be her only option, since she knew where the spare key was hidden. Her parents might hear her coming in and give her a piece of their mind, but at this point, Helga no longer cared. She felt dirty and exhausted. She wasn't sure which she wanted more: a shower, or a good night's sleep.

Helga put down the shrine for a moment and tested the doorknob. The door wasn't locked; perhaps her parents were not yet asleep. The door creaked open as she gave the knob a turn. Her shrine nestled in her arms, Helga edged her way inside the dark entryway, bracing herself for an impending lecture from her father for skipping out on the art show. Even if she didn't get it tonight, she'd get it tomorrow, as soon as -

"_Now_!" someone whispered.

Helga froze like a deer in headlights as the lights suddenly turned back on. A flood of people – her parents, her classmates – jumped out from the kitchen and stood up from where they had been crouching on the stairwell. Several of them had even been hiding beside the front door in the entryway, mere inches away from her.

"Surpriiise!"

Cheers and applause rose up from the crowd. It was just like the daydream Helga had had on the playground yesterday, although this seemed a little closer to a nightmare. Still frozen, Helga began to feel like she might turn into stone and become one with her shrine to Arnold.

Helga caught a glimpse of her older sister, surely the one who had orchestrated the surprise greeting. But one particular figure stood out from amongst the crowd. He took a step forward, his football-shaped head staring quizzically at the sculpture Helga held in her arms. This time, there was no case of mistaken identity. It was definitely _not_ Arnie.

"Helga, that's an interesting sculpture you're holding."

XX

Phil looked up from his crossword puzzle.

"Pookie, did you hear something? Like a scream?"

His wife crouched over the kitchen sink and brandished a swatter as she tracked a nearby fly. Something about flies always got her into a rare mood. Phil rolled his eyes.

"Can't say I did, Corporal Rutherford. But we'll be hearing some screams if we don't take care of this man-eater before he escapes into the tall grass, let me tell you!"

"Sure, Pookie. Whatever you say."

Phil returned to the puzzle, deciding the scream must have been a figment of his imagination. Too many raspberries, maybe. But if it wasn't, somebody farther down the block had sure gotten a nasty surprise.


	8. She Suffers for Her Art

**She Suffers for Her Art**

XX

Helga folded her arms sullenly as she sat in a chair in the corner of the room. Arnold's shrine sat in plain view on the coffee table in the middle of the living room as a small group of her classmates inspected it. Its feathers looked a little worse for wear, and the paint had smeared across its chiseled rock face, but Helga could still clearly see Arnold's features staring at her with lifeless concentration. Her classmates gave each other an occasional whisper as they looked over the sculpture. Rhonda looked back at Helga curiously.

"I still can't believe you screamed, Helga. We didn't mean to surprise you _that_ much! I do hope you're feeling well."

"I'm peachy," growled Helga.

"It must have taken you hours just to make the mouth," said Rhonda as she pointed at the shrine. "At least I think that's a mouth, right? I mean, the level of attention that went into hand-carving so much detail into such hard stone, it's positively stunning. That _is_ granite right? I only know because we have some sculptures in our house that we brought back from Italy..."

Helga tuned Rhonda out until she wandered off somewhere else. Whether or not her classmates knew what the shrine was supposed to represent, Helga wasn't sure; no one had said much about it yet. Even Arnold was unreadable, although he had complimented Helga's sculpture when she walked in. Helga had been trying to decipher his behavior over the evening, but it was no use. Right now he was trying to get Lila's attention away from his cousin, not even paying any attention to the shrine, although Helga had caught him glancing at her a couple of times.

The party went on its merry way around Helga as she sat in her chair, her forehead furrowed. Fortunately, people seemed to be losing interest in the shrine, although the occasional partygoer would take a look at it as they passed by. She thought she noticed Lila take a look at the sculpture and give her a wink before returning to a conversation with Arnie. Of course, Lila already knew Helga's secret, but still – that girl was just too much.

Miriam was nowhere to be seen, while Big Bob was trying to explain the benefit of a five year beeper warranty to a very confused-looking Sheena. Helga's insufferable sister was playing a Chopin piece on the piano, which seemed to be garnering the most attention in the room. She watched her classmates listen to Olga's performance, awe etched on their faces. Helga didn't see what was so good about it. It certainly didn't have the emotion of Chopin.

Eugene seemed to be having the most fun of all, as he was standing on top of the piano and cutting a jaunty jig with a top hat and cane. Helga had no idea where he had gotten the top hat and cane, or how you could dance a jig to Chopin, but Eugene was clearly enjoying himself. At least for the next thirty seconds or so, until he inevitably fell off of the piano, Helga thought. It looked like everybody was enjoying the party except her.

The crowd parted as Big Bob marched across the room towards Helga. Apparently, he was done making his pitch to Sheena, and judging by the expression on his face, he had not been sealing any deals with Helga's classmates. Bob stared down at his daughter, who still sat in the chair with arms folded and a foul expression.

"This is your party, missy," Bob said. "You're just going to sit there all night?"

Helga glared at her father. After everything that had happened to her over the course of the day, she was at the end of her rope. To get a lecture from her father now, in front of all her classmates – it was just too much.

"And why not?"

"Why not? Why not, you ask? After we set up a party to celebrate your victory, where do you get off asking why not? Where's the appreciation, huh?"

Helga gestured to the room. "_My_ victory? _My_ party? Look around you, dad! Everyone's paying attention to Olga, as usual. I don't even know where mom is, and you've spent the whole night trying to sell your friggin' beepers to my friends!"

"Hey hey hey hey! That's just good business, girl!"

"This isn't my party and you know it."

"Yes it is!" shouted Bob. "Look at the banner we put up!"

"Dad, it says 'Congratulations, Holga' on it."

"What?" Bob stared at the banner. "Well, I just forgot to put the horizontal line through the 'e', that's all. What's the big deal?"

"It's clearly an 'o', dad."

Bob narrowed his eyes. The rest of the room was beginning to grow quiet as they heard the argument going on between father and daughter. Eugene, who had just fallen off the piano, did not give anyone his normal assurance that he was okay, not wanting to break the room's awkward silence.

"I don't like your tone at all," Bob said. "My own daughter, giving me this attitude after she didn't even show up at the art show and embarrassed me in front of everybody. And you still haven't given me an explanation for it! Olga's won first place more times than I can count, and she's _never_ pulled a stunt like that."

"See," said Helga, "_that's_ what it's about."

"What? It's about Olga?"

Normally Helga would have said yes, but it wasn't quite what she meant.

"No, not Olga. Not exactly. It's about first place."

"What are you talking about?"

"That's why you threw me this party. That's why you've always liked Olga more than me. Because she's a winner, she's always perfect at everything. And the minute I win something, all of a sudden you're paying attention to me, even though that's not really what you're doing."

"Of course I am."

"No you're not. You don't care about me, dad. When I was just Helga Pataki, I wasn't interesting to you. Now that I'm Helga Pataki, first prize winner, I can be your little trophy. Just like Miriam used to be, just like Olga is. You don't care about us. We're just here to make you look better."

Helga got up from her chair and walked out of the living room as her father and classmates watched. Her father seemed to be at a loss for words. She walked past the kitchen, where her mother appeared to be sitting in a stupor, and reached the front door. Helga didn't know where she was going, but she knew she could not stay in the house any longer. She would go anywhere but here. Her father's voice come from behind her as she opened the front door.

"Come on, Helga, wait a minute!"

Helga walked out the door and down the sidewalk, into the night.

"Wait!"

Bob was about to follow his daughter outside when a boy caught his arm.

"Mr. Pataki, don't worry, I'll get her."

"You? Why-"

"She might keep running away if you go after her. I think I can talk to her and bring her back."

Bob stared at the boy for a moment, who was looking up from beneath his blue baseball cap, and finally acquiesced. He stepped aside as Arnold ran out the door and began following his daughter down the sidewalk, watching as the two of them went down the dimly lit street. Finally, he turned back into his house. Miriam had come out of the kitchen and was giving him a questioning look, his daughter Olga standing beside her. This was not the night that Bob had been hoping for.

XX

Helga brushed tears from her eyes as she walked down the sidewalk, staring at the spiderweb cracks traced across concrete. She sniffed, trying to hold back from crying. It was now very late in the evening, and the city had cooled down a little. She felt a breeze brush by, but it did nothing for the burning hot sensation that welled up in her cheeks and face.

Although Helga had a vague idea of where she was going, mostly she just wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, other than home. Her whirling distraction of emotions was pierced – just barely – by the feeling that someone was following her. Someone who had left the party at her house. The footsteps were not loud enough to be those of her father. Helga did not turn around. She didn't care who it was.

"Helga, wait up a minute."

A bitter noise came from her mouth at the sound of the boy's voice. Arnold. Just what Helga needed, for Arnold to see her like this. Perhaps he was following her to tell her how disgusted he was at the sight of her shrine. A more reasonable voice in Helga's mind told her that Arnold was too nice to say something like that, but after the events of the day so far, she almost believed he would.

"Come on Helga, where are you going?"

"Away. Leave me alone, football head."

Arnold fell silent as Helga kept walking. But he did not stop following her; Helga felt a maddening sensation as she realized that he would not let her go. She passed rows of red brick buildings as she approached her destination, a place where she sometimes went when she wanted to be alone. A faint whiff of something hit her, a different kind of smell in the air – the kind of smell you picked up when you were near water. She was almost there.

XX

If he didn't know any better, Gerald would almost be inclined to guess that Helga's art show entry was in the shape of his best friend's head.

Gerald stared at the hefty-looking sculpture as it sat on the coffee table and gazed vacantly back at him. He chuckled; Helga making a shrine to Arnold. The idea was too ridiculous to take seriously. All she did was pick on him, after all – what kind of crazy person expressed their love by attacking the object of their affection? Besides Chocolate Boy, Gerald admitted. Maybe Helga just liked football a lot.

As Gerald took a sip of his cup of punch, however, he realized that Arnold was not the only one with a football shaped head. There _was_ Arnie to consider. And everyone at school knew how Arnie had declared his love for Helga during his last visit from the country... could it be that Helga liked him back? To Gerald, the thought of Helga liking Arnold's cousin seemed just as outlandish as Helga liking Arnold himself, but then Arnie did seem to have a strange charm with certain girls. _There he is right now_, Gerald thought as he glanced up from Helga's sculpture. _Standing in the middle of the room like a darn fool while Lila hangs all over him._

His train of thought derailed, Gerald looked around the room at the dwindling partygoers. After Helga's awkward outburst, the party looked like it was coming to an end as Gerald's classmates filtered out the door. He waved at Rhonda and Nadine as they passed by on their way out. Gerald, however, wanted to wait until Arnold came back before going anywhere, and Phoebe looked like she had the same thought about Helga.

Gerald was about to return to the punch bowl and talk to Phoebe, since he knew she was a little timid at social events without having him or Helga nearby to talk to, when he started to realize he was drinking way too much punch. Gerald set down his cup and motioned to Phoebe as she glanced at him, telling her he'd be back in a moment.

"Hey Mr. Pataki, where's your bathroom?"

"Huh?"

Bob glanced up from where he had been sitting on his couch silently. Gerald stared at him; Helga's father seemed to have no energy left as he stared at the blank television screen, ignoring the party's remaining stragglers. It was a weird change from earlier in the evening.

"I dunno, go upstairs or something." he finally answered.

Gerald left the living room and passed through the entryway as he raced up the stairway for the bathroom. Hopefully it wouldn't be hard to find. And hopefully Arnold would get back before the atmosphere in the Pataki house got too awkward to tolerate.

XX

A last block of houses gave way to a road. Across the road stood a collection of dilapidated buildings, a slaughterhouse, and a fairground, all straddling the river. A merry-go-round was set up on a wooden walkway at the edge of the fairground, close to the slaughterhouse and near a few docks that jutted out into the water. Sometimes Helga liked to go on the merry-go-round - sometimes with Phoebe, sometimes alone. The porpoises were her favorite. The smell wasn't always that great when the odor from the slaughterhouse combined with garbage from the river, but sometimes it wasn't bad. Tonight, it was almost pleasant.

Helga reached the merry-go-round, which was turned off, and chose a porpoise to sit on as she stared out at the river. She listened as Arnold stepped onto the ride and chose a manatee-shaped seat beside her. No one else was in sight, and a blanket of cool night air draped silently over them.

"You want to talk?" Arnold asked.

"No."

Arnold knew she wasn't being truthful. He stayed silent for another moment as he thought about how to get through to her.

"I'm sorry about what happened at the party."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about."

"I know. But I know how your family can be annoying sometimes."

"Yeah, _that's_ an understatement," said Helga as she sniffed.

As the two of them sat in the carousel, Helga began to wish that the ride would start moving. Anything to take her mind off Arnold's intense focus on her. Normally, Helga would have been ecstatic about sitting on a merry-go-round and having a conversation with Arnold, but under in these circumstances. Helga knew that Arnold never saw her at her best, but at least she usually had her shields up. Now, she felt too vulnerable, too open. She did not want him to see her when she was so weak.

"You know," said Arnold, "I can understand why they make you angry, but it does seem like they were trying. They did throw you a party."

"Didn't you listen to anything I said to my dad in there?"

"Sure. And you made good points. But I just meant that they recognized what you did, and they made an effort. It wasn't perfect, but they did it."

"I'd rather they didn't."

Arnold thought about what Helga said. He wasn't exactly sure why she had submitted her sculpture into the contest – and boy, was it an interesting sculpture – if she hadn't wanted to win, if she hadn't wanted to get some kind of recognition for it. But then, Helga was a complex person. He wasn't sure if he'd ever understand her, but he knew there was a lot more going on beneath that blustering exterior that she liked to put up.

"Haven't you always said you hated how Olga got all the attention, Helga? Now you're getting some of it, too. And you deserve it, you know."

Helga felt herself blush – she was glad it was nighttime and there was no lighting near the merry-go-round. Still, she felt the urge to resist the direction in which Arnold was trying to steer the conversation.

"I just want them to appreciate me for who I am. I can't be like Olga. I can't win first prize all the time. She's smarter than me, she's prettier than me, she does everything perfectly without even trying. After tonight, this will be it for me."

"I don't think that's true," said Arnold. "You're obviously creative, so there's no reason to think this is the only time you'll ever be successful at something. And I don't know about your sister, but I always thought you were pretty."

Helga barely caught herself from gaping at Arnold. Did he just call her pretty? She felt her stomach begin to flutter as her blush returned with a vengeance.

"Have you told them how you feel?" asked Arnold.

"What, my family?"

"Yeah."

Helga thought about it, still a little distracted by Arnold's last comment. She was sure she had told her family how she felt in the past, although she had to admit that she didn't bother trying to communicate with her family too much lately when they just ended up ignoring her. Her father in particular. What was the use?

"I don't know, Arnold. It wouldn't make a difference."

"Maybe not, but it's worth a try. I just think that maybe tonight would be a good time to try to work things out. Your family isn't perfect, Helga, you've told me that, and believe me, I can see that – but no family is. My family sure isn't, even if I do love them. My grandma doesn't know who she is half the time. We celebrate the Fourth of July on Christmas. I don't even know where my parents are right now."

Helga felt a twinge of guilt as she thought about Arnold's family situation. Perhaps she didn't have it as bad as she thought, even though it sure felt like she did.

"Sorry, Arnold."

Arnold shook his head. "You don't have anything to be sorry about. Like I said, I love my family, whether or not they're perfect."

Leaning against the pole that connected to the porpoise to the carousel, Helga felt the cool metal against her skin as she thought about Arnold's advice. She tried to imagine telling her dad how she felt about the way he treated her, but the image was a stretch.

"I just don't know how to talk to my dad, you know? It's impossible."

Arnold remembered trying to talk to Helga's father in the past about the parade float he had designed, and knew exactly what Helga meant. Still, he felt like he had to encourage her.

"I think your dad probably just grew up a certain way, and he really likes success and being in control of everything. That's why he's so focused on his beeper business, and why he notices you and Olga the most when you guys are winning something. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love you. I think it's just harder for him to get through the walls he's got up, to let you know how he really feels. It's like some people bury all that stuff inside themselves, and don't know how to let it out. You know what I mean, Helga?"

Helga did not answer, but she knew what he meant. Whether or not it was true of her father, though, Helga wasn't sure. Arnold could be painfully optimistic about other people sometimes.

After a moment, Helga felt the need to stretch her legs. She got up from her porpoise and stepped off the merry-go-round, walking towards one of the docks that overlooked the river. There were no lights on the dock itself, but the occasional light shined in the nearby fairground, and Helga's eyes had long since gotten used to the darkness. She sat down carefully at the edge of the dock and dangled her legs over the side, looking at the fuzzy black ripples of water passing below in the river. The night's silence was broken only by the sound of water lapping against wood. Arnold joined her, sitting down by her side.

"That was a really nice sculpture, you know."

Helga glanced at Arnold as he sat close by. She tried to make out his expression, which was obscured by darkness. He was smiling, but she couldn't read anything deeper than that from his face. She had no idea whether or not Arnold had recognized what the sculpture was. Was it possible he could have missed it? Helga had no idea how Arnold could be that dense. Maybe he had seen what it was supposed to represent, but was keeping quiet out of politeness. Too nice to tell her up front that he wasn't interested in her. Too nice to say he didn't _like_ her like her.

Maybe, Helga thought, it was best to just say it. Perhaps her moment of weakness was the best time to let it out. She had already been through enough that she felt like her normal barriers were in tatters. She was being unusually civil with Arnold, and he had seen her sculpture without running away in terror – if she didn't say something now, she didn't know when she ever would. Helga drew in a breath, trying to screw up the courage. Arnold sensed the change in mood and looked at her a little strangely. It was on the tip of Helga's tongue. Almost there...

She couldn't do it. She wasn't ready yet.

"What is it, Helga?"

Helga stared out over the river. "Nothing."

The two of them sat in silence for a long time, enjoying the view of the water and the silent fairground nearby, until Arnold stood back up. He looked down at Helga.

"You want to go home?" he asked, extending a hand.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Helga took his hand and stood up, staring at that football-shaped head. That black hole that seemed to suck up her every waking thought.. That oblong seed that gave bloom to her desires, her passions, her creativity. So much of her was wrapped up in him. Maybe it was a little crazy, but someone had told her earlier that crazy was okay.

"Hey Arnold?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for everything."

Arnold gave her another smile as he pulled her into a hug.

"You're welcome."

Helga hung limply in his embrace for a moment until she returned the hug, wrapping her arms around him. Her nose was buried in his hair, and she couldn't resist taking a sniff. _Criminy_, she thought. _That shampoo is incredible_. They broke apart after a moment – not nearly long enough, in her opinion – and began to walk back to her home. Helga let out a fluttering sigh, reflecting on the evening as the two of them walked side by side down the block.

As far as bad days went, this one wasn't turning out so bad after all.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - There will be 2 more chapters after this, just to let you guys know. I seem to have a tendency to write chapters that could sort of work as endings before my stories actually end, haha. But Helga still has to have a chat with her dad, and we still don't know just how much Arnold and/or her classmates thought about that shrine of hers._


	9. Home

**Home**

XX

A door hung ajar in the upstairs hallway. Gerald glanced inside – it was not the bathroom. Judging by the brief glimpse of pink bedsheets, it was Helga's room.

Gerald left Helga's doorway, about to check the next door down, when he felt his urge to find the bathroom eclipsed by a rising sense of curiosity. Helga's room. She and Arnold were out in the streets somewhere after her meltdown in the living room, so there was no Helga to be found in the house. No one upstairs except for himself. Gerald felt an invisible force begin to pull him back towards the door. Did he dare enter the lair of the beast?

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if he just took a peek.

Gerald eased the door open as quietly as he could, although he was nervous enough to believe its ominous creak would be enough to alert everyone downstairs. Fortunately, no one came up. He walked into the room and took a look around. Helga's room was sparsely decorated: a window, a closet, a dresser, an end table, wallpaper decorated with yellow hearts. Gerald thought hearts and a pink bedspread seemed a little feminine for Helga, but then, a pink bow was pretty feminine too, and she had worn that for as long as he could remember. He noticed a small shelf above Helga's bed upon which a beige porcelain dog stood at attention.

_ Okay, that's a bit weird_, he thought.

The closet door was open a crack. Gerald pushed it open a little more and peered inside, knowing that his curiosity was beginning to verge on an invasion of privacy, but the chance to see Helga G. Pataki's room was so enticing that he felt unable to resist. Inside the closet, nestled in the back behind a row of clothes, was some kind of abstract object on a pedestal. Gerald studied it for a moment, but had no idea what it could be. He remembered Helga's sculpture on the living room coffee table downstairs, and an amusing thought crossed his mind; maybe Helga worshipped an effigy of Arnold's cousin Arnie in her closet every night.

_Gerald, you gotta be crazy_, he thought to himself with a smile as he closed the closet door. He turned to leave Helga's room when something on the end table beside the bed caught his eye at the last second. He stared at the object. It was a book.

_ What kind of a book does Helga Pataki read?_ he wondered.

There were several other books on a shelf, one of which was written by a guy named Chaucer – Gerald had seen one of his books in the school library once, but it looked way too old-timey for him – but he decided the book on the end table must be one which Helga was in the process of reading.

He opened the book to a random page, began to read, and gasped.

_Arnold, you make my girlhood tremble_

_ My senses all go wacky._

_ Someday I'll tell the world, my love -_

_ Or my name's not Helga G. Pataki._

Gerald dropped Helga's journal to the floor.

"Whoa."

For just a moment, Gerald felt a pang of guilt at snooping through Helga's room and reading the journal. The feeling was quickly replaced by a sense of horror as the image of Arnold and Helga, lip-locked in a passionate embrace, wormed its way into his mind. Finally, both of these feelings were replaced by an even more intense feeling. An undeniable, overpowering need.

The need to tell Arnold.

At the same time as the thought entered his mind, Gerald heard the faint sound of the front door opening downstairs, followed by his best friend's voice. Arnold and Helga must be back. He left the end table, about to race through Helga's bedroom door, when he froze at the sight of the girl standing in the doorway. Gerald was caught red-handed. And there was no way out.

"Gerald," said Phoebe in a menacing voice, "what were you just reading?"

"Who me? Nothin' at all. Just looking for the bathroom."

"Yes, that is why I came up," said Phoebe. "You were taking so long, I thought perhaps you were lost. And Arnold's cousin was talking to me, so I wanted to escape."

Gerald nodded as he inched forward. "That's cool. Well, uh, I'm pretty sure the bathroom is downstairs, so if you'll just let me go down-"

Gerald made a sudden move towards the open door, but Phoebe stretched her arms out and matched his movement like she was a tiny defensive lineman. Another attempt to outmaneuver Phoebe resulted in failure. Clearly, Phoebe had seen what Gerald was reading.

"You're not going anywhere, Gerald."

"Come on, Phoebe! I gotta tell Arnold!" Gerald tried to rush past his friend, but was surprised to find that she was able to grab hold of him and prevent him from moving. Phoebe was stronger than she looked. "Aw come on, I can't keep this secret, it's just too much! I gotta go right now and-"

Phoebe stepped back and slapped Gerald across the face. He stood back, shocked.

"Sorry, you were talking like a crazy person."

"Fair enough," said Gerald as he rubbed his stinging cheek.

"Listen to me," said Phoebe as she closed Helga's bedroom door behind her, "you can't tell Arnold about this. It would destroy Helga, and I just can't let you do that – she's my best friend. She has to tell him herself, when she's ready."

Gerald began to pout, but he knew Phoebe wouldn't budge. What was more, he knew she was right. Just when he had gotten the juiciest piece of gossip in P.S. 118 history, Phoebe had to spoil his fun. He rolled his eyes, admitting defeat, and followed his friend back down the stairs to the remains of the party.

XX

"Thanks for havin' us over, Mr. Pataki!" said Gerald.

"Yeah, sure."

Now that Arnold had brought Helga back to her house, the party was over, and everyone had filtered out except for Gerald, Phoebe, Arnold, and Arnie. Phoebe's parents had just arrived to pick up their daughter and give Gerald a ride to his house. Arnold and Arnie were still waiting for Arnold's grandfather to arrive in his beloved Packard, and they stood in the entryway with Helga and her parents as Phoebe and Gerald got ready to leave.

"You sure you don't need a ride, Arnold?"

"No, but thanks. We should hang out sometime this weekend."

"Definitely," agreed Gerald as the two of them waggled thumbs. "Hey Helga, congratulations again on winning the art show!"

Helga narrowed her eyes briefly at Gerald – his compliment seemed to be genuine, although he was staring at her in a bizarre way. "Um, thanks," she said.

Phoebe gave her best friend a hug. "I'll talk to you sometime this weekend as well, okay?"

"Sure, Phoebe."

Gerald would have expected Helga to look a lot more miserable than she did, considering she was probably in deep trouble for her outburst earlier, but if he didn't know any better, he could swear she almost looked cheery. After shaking Arnie's hand awkwardly, Gerald followed Phoebe out the door and into the backseat of her parents' car. He rolled down the window to get a breeze going as the car started. The Pataki's house fell behind them as they drove away.

Phoebe's parents asked them how the art show and the party had been, but after a brief exchange between parents and children, the car was silent. Gerald sat quietly in the back as he thought about what he had read in the journal. The poem seemed to confirm his suspicions that Helga's sculpture _was_ in fact football-shaped. But it was definitely not made in Arnie's image.

The more Gerald thought about it, the more it seemed to make a bizarre kind of sense. All the teasing and taunting, the constant negative attention she gave Arnold, must have been ways to mask her true feelings. Gerald couldn't even count all the times he had seen her shoot spitballs at Arnold's head in class, the times Arnold had complained about something Helga did while the two of them were hanging out in his loft room, the times the phrase 'football head' had been flung from Helga's lips with such biting disdain.

In light of Helga's real feelings, so much of her behavior seemed different to Gerald. He was even starting to remember particular moments that seemed a little strange, like when Arnold bumped into her in the street and her initial reaction was a kind of excited surprise, which shifted to anger. How had he not noticed it before?

Gerald felt like a light switch had been flipped on in his mind. He remembered the time he and his classmates had been eating ice cream in Arnold's room and talking about go-carts when Helga had suddenly dropped out of Arnold's couch with a tape in her mouth. At the time, they hadn't even mentioned it. Just another one of Helga's incredibly bizarre situations, like when she talked to herself sometimes, or when she dashed behind something for a few minutes with no explanation. Gerald reeled at all the implications.

"Hey Phoebe."

"Yes, Gerald?"

"Just makin' sure, but that shrine _was_ shaped like Arnold's head, right?"

Phoebe nodded curtly.

"How long has she had a thing for him?"

"I don't really feel comfortable talking about it too much, Gerald. You weren't supposed to find out about that in the first place."

Phoebe gave Gerald a disapproving look that somehow made him feel even guiltier than any of the looks his parents had ever given him. He shifted uncomfortably in the back seat and gulped.

"You think Arnold noticed about the sculpture? I mean, how could he have missed that?"

"I don't know," Phoebe admitted. "He certainly didn't say anything about it."

Phoebe felt guilty about being unable to prevent Helga's awkward confrontation with her classmates, but she had not been able to get in contact with her friend ever since Bob drove them all back to the Pataki house and they realized Helga wasn't there. She had no idea how much Helga's secret had been compromised when all their classmates saw the sculpture, but at the very least, she could make sure Gerald didn't spill the beans to Arnold.

"I guess maybe it's not that surprising if he didn't realize what that sculpture was," said Gerald as he thought about his friend's interactions with girls. "I mean, he still hasn't given up with Lila even though she's always telling him how she doesn't _like_ him like him. He's a bold kid, that Arnold, but when it comes to the ladies, the boy can't take a hint."

"I suppose you may have a point."

Gerald crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in the car seat, satisfied with his appraisal of the situation. "Glad I'm not like that," he said. "Gerald always knows how to take a hint from the ladies. Nothing goes under my radar, no sir!"

Phoebe couldn't help but smile.

"Is that right?"

XX

The residents of the boarding house stood in the kitchen, gathering around the table as they stared at Arnie's unsettling creation. The collage of ingredient labels crouched on the table like some kind of feral creature that no one dared to approach too closely. It sucked the air out of the room.

"It's so cree -" Mr. Hyunh paused abruptly when he noticed Arnold's cousin standing beside him. "So imaginative. Something like that, take a lot of imagination, huh?" Mr. Hyunh patted Arnie on the back reluctantly. "It's good job! Good job."

Oskar threw his hands up in the air. "I don't get it," he said. "Come on Suzie, let's go to bed now. I've been standing up for so long today. Maybe you can give me a little foot massage in bed, wouldn't that be nice?" Oskar left the kitchen and marched up the stairs as Suzie followed him, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I think we should get to bed too, Grandpa," said Arnold. He and his cousin had been out all night, and it was already past midnight. Arnold had been yawning ever since he got back to the boarding house.

"Really?" Phil scratched his head in confusion. "It's the weekend tomorrow." He pulled his Schnitzenbauer Time Master 909 gold watch from his pocket, making sure everyone in the kitchen saw it – it was a nice watch, after all – and noticed that Saturday morning had arrived. "Actually, it's the weekend already. Either way, why go to sleep? You kids are still young, you can horse around all morning if you want to!"

"No thanks, Grandpa."

Arnold trudged upstairs, followed by his cousin. They took turns brushing their teeth in the upstairs bathroom and then went up the loft stairway into Arnold's room. Arnold smiled. After such an active Friday, and particularly after such an intense evening at the Pataki's, his room was a welcome sight. He dropped onto his bed without even bothering to change into his pajamas, while Arnie unrolled the sleeping bag he was using while he visited. Arnold's grandfather could have set Arnie up in a spare room of the boarding house, but neither Arnold nor Phil had thought of it until it was too late. That, Arnold thought, or his grandpa was playing a practical joke on him.

"You know," said Arnie as he changed into his pajamas, "I don't think Helga likes me."

Arnold looked over at his cousin.

"No, I guess not."

"It's too bad. I tried to woo her – _gnnk_ – at the art show, and when she came to her party, but she didn't pay attention to me. I guess maybe Helga just doesn't see it the way I do."

Arnold turned the room's lights off with his remote control. He glanced at his cousin, who laid back in his sleeping bag and stared up at the skylight. A bright moon hung over them, pouring light down into the room.

"I could have sworn she liked me after I saw that sculpture," said Arnie, "but I guess it didn't mean anything. I was just reading into it too much."

Arnold yawned. "It happens."

As he thought about what his cousin had said, Arnold began to feel a pang of sympathy. It was true that Lila liked his cousin, and the very thought of them together made Arnold's eyelid twitch, but Arnie didn't like Lila back. He liked Helga. And it was pretty clear that Helga wanted nothing to do with Arnie. In a sense, his cousin's situation was the same as his own. Arnold kept trying to get Lila to see him as something more than a friend, but he just couldn't get through to her. Maybe he and his cousin weren't so different after all.

_ Well_, Arnold corrected himself, _that's not true_. Arnie collected lint, after all. He was incredibly weird. But then, people liked what they liked, and Arnold could see how Arnie's strange behavior might make things hard for him sometimes. Maybe he and his cousin weren't that alike - but when it came to girls, they did have something in common.

"Hey, Arnie?"

Arnie's eyes blinked, one after the other, brief twinkles in the moonlight.

"Yes?"

"Congratulations on winning second place in the contest."

"Thanks."

Arnie settled into his sleeping bag, and Arnold was surprised to see what looked like a smile on his cousin's normally stoic face.

As he lay in silence, an image of Helga's sculpture formed in Arnold's imagination. The feathers, the carved granite designs, the paint, the impassive stare. The football shape. Arnold had been a little preoccupied with the sculpture ever since he saw it at the party – something about it really stood out. And now that Arnie had mentioned it, the image loomed even greater in his mind's eye.

Arnie had a point; the sculpture could have been a model of his cousin's head. _Then again_, Arnold thought, _it could been a model of _my_ head_. The officials had announced each contest winner's title at the awards ceremony – what was it called again? Something about a shrine, Arnold remembered. His mouth formed into a wry smile as he thought about the possibility that Helga had a made a shrine to him.

But there was no way that could be the explanation. For one thing, she'd ever enter it into an art contest if that's what it was. And it just didn't fit with the way she treated him. Arnold knew Helga wasn't as bad as she made herself out to be, but she certainly didn't _like_ him like him. She was far too mean to him for that to be the case.

Arnold's already half-lidded eyes began to droop even further as sleep descended, and his wandering thoughts drifted from the sculpture to another image. A stranger image. Helga, arms outstretched. Grabbing him, pulling him into her embrace, her pink bow disheveled, hair undone, as her lips parted and met his own...

_Okay Arnold, enough with the weird thoughts. Go to sleep._

The image dissipated as it floated up into the air, through his skylight and into the night. Arnold turned over in his bed as he slipped into the world of dreams.

XX

Bob Pataki sat on the couch beside his daughter, at a loss for what to say. Olga and Miriam had gone to bed already, but Helga's outburst had been directed at Bob in particular, and Miriam had made it clear that she expected him to do something about it. It wasn't often that Miriam took a certain tone with him, but when she did, his usual bluster disappeared. Bob looked down at his youngest daughter. Helga had always been harder to approach than Olga, and Bob had never been an expert at communication. Selling beepers, easy. Talking about his feelings, not so much.

"So, uh, Ol – I mean Helga," he said. "Why did you skip the art show?"

Helga thought about how best to answer the question. She wasn't sure how much of her dysfunctional non-relationship with Arnold could be shared with her parents. Honestly, she didn't really want to share any of that with them.

"I just got nervous about people seeing my art," she said. "I was worried they would judge me." It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie either.

"But you won first place, Helga. Obviously they thought it was better than the other entries. And I thought your little sculpture looked great, personally – it one of those things you always keep in your closet, right?"

"_What_? How did you know that?"

"Helga, your mom cleans your room and does your laundry. Well, sometimes she does. But it's not like those things are well-hidden."

Helga scowled at the thought of her parents knowing about her shrine to Arnold. In retrospect, perhaps it _was_ in plain view for anyone who chose to look inside her closet.

"So, did you mean what you said to me earlier?"

Helga shrugged. "I don't know. Kind of. Maybe I was a little harsh."

Bob thought about the accusations Helga had flung at him before she had stormed out the house. She had told him that all he cared about was winning, and that Miriam, Olga, and herself were only there to make him look good. He knew that wasn't true – Bob loved his wife and his daughters, even though he often had trouble showing it – but the first part of her accusation had hit him a little too close for comfort. And to be honest, while he loved his family, maybe he sometimes focused on the wrong things about them.

Bob was very focused on his beeper business, on being successful. Being the Beeper King was something he was proud of. You had to be successful in life, to work hard and compete with other people. Otherwise you would just get walked on. It was an attitude that had gotten him through what was sometimes a rough life. Bob believed in his philosophy on life, and he wanted his children to grow up to be successful as well, but he knew that sometimes it clouded the way he saw the people he cared most about.

"Helga, I know I don't say it that much, but I love you."

His daughter was silent.

"And I'm proud of you. I mean, I'm proud of you for winning first place, but you didn't have to. You could have just won second place, for instance."

Helga rolled her eyes, and Bob knew he needed to go a little farther.

"Well, not just second. You could win third, or a honorable mention. Wait, that's not what I mean. You could come in last and it wouldn't matter. Look – Helga, I'm just proud of you for who you are." Bob ruffled his daughter's hair, a little nervously, but affectionately. Helga's pink bow hung lopsidedly from her head as a result.

"Thanks dad," grumbled Helga as she readjusted her bow. "I love you too."

Bob felt the unexpected weight of his daughter as she leaned over and gave him a hug. It was not often that his daughter hugged him. He smiled and returned the embrace, adding a pat on the back in an effort to make the whole affair a little less mushy.

"Alright Helga, time for bed I think. It's getting pretty late."

"I couldn't agree more," said Helga. She got up from the couch and grunted as she lifted up the heavy shrine, which was still standing on the coffee table where it had been on display during the party.

"You want any help with that thing?"

"No, I got it."

Helga made her way up the stairs and fumbled with the doorknob before slipping inside her bedroom, although not before she smacked the stone effigy loudly against the wall. Turning the light on, she took her makeshift shrine out of the closet and put the real one back where it belonged. After changing into her pajamas and turning the lights back off, she opened her closet door one last time and flipped on the Christmas lights strung up around her altar. Helga wanted one last look at her idol before she slept. Too tired to chant any mantras or perform any supplications, she stood and stared at her creation.

Her beloved, and her despair. But perhaps her redemption.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - one chapter left. It will be a sort of epilogue, taking place at the start of the next school week._


	10. First

**First**

XX

The weekend was over, and a new week of school was about to begin.

Helga left her bedroom in an apprehensive mood, not looking forward to her upcoming day. Friday had been such a roller coaster ride that Helga had chosen to spend most of her weekend cooped up indoors - watching television, writing some poetry, even doing a little homework. When she went to school in less than an hour, however, Helga didn't know what to expect from her classmates. Their reaction at the party had been hard to read. For all she knew, she would come to class and be a laughingstock. Her carefully cultivated rough exterior could be shattered forever, the gooey emotional interior spilling out for everyone to see. Maybe they'd call her Wacky Pataki.

Upon arriving at the bathroom door, Helga almost ran into her father, who had just come from his own bedroom. Helga grumbled and stepped back, knowing Bob was about to take a long shower, and probably leave a disgusting layer of body hair over the tub when he got out. Bob was about to go into the bathroom, but stopped at the last moment.

"Hey, uh, you go on," said Bob. "I can wait."

Helga stared at her father incredulously. "For real?"

"Yeah, you got school anyway. Knock yourself out!"

Bob stood back as his daughter raced into the bathroom; Helga wanted to grab the opportunity before her father's freakish behavior reverted back to normal. She brushed her teeth, took a quick shower, fiddled with her pink bow a little, and gave herself a thumbs up in the mirror in an attempt to raise her spirits. At least she wouldn't go to school stinking.

Another surprise waited for Helga downstairs. Her mother was standing at the kitchen table with a smile – not prone, not half-comatose in a chair, but actually standing up – and beside her was an open lunch box, packed and ready to go. Helga looked inside the lunch box. It actually looked appetizing.

"Wow. Thanks, mom!"

"You're welcome Helga. Oh, and here's your sister, just in time!"

"Hello everyone!"

Olga entered the kitchen, looking as bright and chipper as she always did. When it came to mornings, there was no such thing as too early for Olga. She was about to leave for Bennington College again, only having visited to see Helga's art show and stay for the weekend, and she had waited until her little sister was up before she left.

Helga and her parents followed Olga to the front door after she picked up her bags. Before she left, Olga turned and embraced her little sister.

"Helga, I want you to know how proud of you I am. I was just delighted to hear you won that contest, and I thought your little sculpture was marvelous. It reminded me of some of the tribal totems I saw during my summer session in San Lorenzo!"

"Yeah, thanks," Helga managed to gasp through her sister's tight hug.

"I'm looking forward to spending time with you on my next visit, little sister. I love you."

Helga patted her sister on the back. Spending a weekend with Olga had been a trying experience as usual, but somehow it hadn't been quite as bad as she had expected. As a matter of fact, a part of Helga actually felt the same as Olga did and looked forward to their next visit. Just as long as it wasn't for another couple of months, at the least.

"Bye Olga. Have fun at college."

Bob and Miriam each hugged their eldest daughter in turn.

"Well," said Bob, "Give us a call when you're back at school, Hel – I mean, Olga."

Olga gasped, her hand shooting up to her mouth. As Helga glanced up at her father in surprise and took in her sister's shocked expression, she regretted the fact that she was not holding a camera.

XX

"Look, there she is," whispered Sid.

The group at the table looked up as Helga entered the lunch room. They tried to make an effort not to look too conspicuous, but it was hard to miss everyone's reaction; for just a moment, the entire lunch room seemed to grow quiet at Helga's entrance. Then, as quickly as the silence had begun, it ended. People looked back to their lunches, their classmates, and went on with their conversations.

Stinky looked around the lunch table as he chewed on a bite of his sandwich. "Sure was a crazy party, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Rhonda, "but I think we should leave Helga alone about it. I don't think she had a lot of fun, and her parents seem like quite the pain."

Normally Rhonda and Nadine sat at another table, but today they wanted to engage in a little gossip with their classmates during lunch about the strange events of last Friday. Rhonda didn't know why, but as mean as Helga could be, she felt a little sympathy towards the girl after meeting her parents and seeing the outburst that ended the party. Seeing Helga's winning sculpture at her victory party had also been an eye-opening experience for Rhonda; it had not been long before she realized why it looked so familiar, and the special attention Helga seemed to pay to Arnold at school made a lot more sense now. Something about it struck her as terribly charming.

Rhonda had subtly brought up the sculpture a couple of times in conversation at lunch, trying to figure out if any of her classmates noticed the likeness, but none of them seemed to be aware of it. Either that or they were keeping their lips tightly sealed. Rhonda had no intention to tell them, partly due to the sympathy factor, but partly because getting on Helga's bad side was probably a dumb idea. The only person Rhonda was even less eager to enrage would be Big Patty.

"Man, you guys are a buncha wusses," said Harold. "Why should we be all sensitive with her? She's always mean to us!" Harold stood up and pushed his chair back as numerous heads turned, sensing the sudden current of confrontation in the air. "Hey Helga!" he yelled.

Helga turned.

"Look at me, everybody!"

Harold began to prance around as if he was a model on a boardwalk. "I'm Helga! I'm such an artiste!" He did a pirouette as Sid shifted his seat farther away. "I can make statues and win first place and be all fancy and -"

Unfortunately for him, Harold was too absorbed in his dance to notice that his own lunch tray had disappeared from the lunch table. Finishing his pirouette, Harold caught a brief glimpse of Helga, glowering in front of him, before the tray of food was upended into his face. He fell to the ground, stunned, as several people around the room snorted with laughter.

"Hilarious," said Helga. "Have a nice lunch, chucklehead!"

Harold sat on the ground and considered the option of running away and crying for a moment, but then realized with a lick of his lips that the food on his face was still perfectly edible.

The spectacle having passed, the lunch room returned to its normal level of chatter as Helga joined Phoebe at a lunch table. She opened her lunch box and gaped at the unusually tasty selection inside. Miriam had done a good job. Helga took out her sandwich and fruit and noticed a little note at the bottom of the box, which she read with a smile:

_Have a nice day, Helga!_

The note was sappy, but a pleasant surprise. Helga supposed her parents were very eager to show her they appreciated her after the events of Friday, even when she wasn't winning an art contest. It wasn't a unique experience – Helga remembered other occasions when her mother and father seemed to feel a little guilty about ignoring her – and, inevitably, they tended to drift back into their usual behavior. Bob being absorbed in his work, Miriam absorbed in her smoothies. Both of them absorbed in Olga. Still, it could be different this time, Helga thought. You never knew. And she'd enjoy it while it lasted. Most importantly, they seemed to be showing her they did care. As Arnold had said, they were trying.

"How are you today, Helga?" her friend asked.

"Pretty good Pheebs, thanks." Helga took a bite out of her sandwich and peered at the football-headed boy seated at another table with his tall-haired friend. The two of them seemed to be in an animated conversation with each other, and were not paying any attention to Helga. She still had no idea what Arnold thought about the sculpture.

"Hey Phoebe... did you happen to overhear anything at the party, or this weekend? You know, like, people talking about certain things. Like my sculpture, maybe. Or certain dessert foods."

"No Helga, I haven't heard anything. I believe your taste in ice cream is still just between us."

Helga nodded. She noticed Phoebe look over at the other table and give Gerald a brief glance, but didn't think much of it. Phoebe glanced at Gerald from time to time – Helga sometimes wondered if her best friend had a certain fondness for chocolate ice cream.

"That's good, Pheebs. I don't think I'm ready to share quite yet."

Right after she had finished speaking, Helga noticed Lila at another table, who gave her a surreptitious wink. Helga returned the wink with a throat-throttling motion, at which Lila nodded quickly in understanding. At least Helga had that particular potential leak of her secret under control.

Helga turned her attention to Arnold and Gerald and stared dreamily at Arnold's football head. He was still deep in conversation with his friend. She felt a rising urge to dart behind the dirty tray cart and whip out her locket while she performed an off-the-cuff ode to her beloved. She hadn't gotten the chance to do it when she came into lunch, what with Harold's little routine. Helga glanced over at the cart and noticed that Brainy was already standing nearby. Almost as if he knew that it was about time to take his usual punch to the face. In fact, as she watched, Helga thought she imagined Brainy giving her a little wink.

Perhaps the art show hadn't changed her situation much at all, thought Helga as she finished her sandwich and got up from the table. Her life did not look like it was in any danger of turning upside down. At least, not before she was ready for it to do that.

XX

Dr. Bliss wrote a few things down in her notebook while she watched her young visitor staring through the office window at the city streets outside during a break in their conversation. Dr. Bliss didn't think the view was that interesting herself, but then she had worked in the office for a while, and Helga seemed to enjoy pacing around and occupying herself with distractions while she talked. All of the children she saw during her sessions tended to have different habits like that. Everyone had their little behavioral quirks when it came to unloading their emotions, she had noticed over time.

Helga had called her to schedule this particular session a little earlier than usual. Dr. Bliss didn't mind, as she knew that Helga probably had a lot to talk about after winning an art contest with the sculptural embodiment of her deepest emotional vulnerabilities. To be honest, she felt a little bit guilty about getting Helga into such a situation, even if Helga was the one who had chosen to enter the shrine.

"It sounds like you had a good day at school then," Dr. Bliss said.

"I guess so."

"You know, Helga, I think you learned something important from this whole art show experience."

"What's that?"

"Your fears tend to be much worse than what happens in reality. You went through a kind of worst case scenario – your shrine to Arnold was displayed in front of your whole class, not to mention Arnold himself. And from the sound of it, other than an uncomfortable day or two, nothing bad has really happened. Things are the same. You faced your worst fears and came through just fine."

Helga left the window and sat down on the couch, her legs propped up against the back. As she thought about it, she realized Dr. Bliss was right. That didn't necessarily mean she'd enter the shrine again if she could go back and do things over, but still, she wasn't an emotional wreck. No more than usual, anyway.

"Hmm, I guess not. But it doesn't mean I'm gonna go blab how I feel to Arnold yet."

"Of course. Only when you're ready. But when you are, I think a lesson you can take from this experience is that things won't end up nearly as bad as you might expect. Even your worst case scenario won't be that bad. Arnold sounds like a nice boy, after all, so nothing horrible will happen, regardless of how he may feel about you. Whatever happens, you'll be okay with yourself, and life will go on. And you're clearly a talented young lady, Helga – I think you should keep exploring your artistic side. It's a good way to deal with your emotions."

Dr. Bliss watched as Helga mulled over the advice. It looked like the young girl was in agreement with her. She checked her watch; Dr. Bliss enjoyed her time with Helga, but the session was already running a little late, and she did have other children to see.

"Alright Helga, would you like to meet at the normal time next week?"

"Sure," said Helga as she got up and shook Dr. Bliss's hand. "Thanks for everything, doc."

"You're very welcome."

Just before Helga was about to leave the room, Dr. Bliss grabbed a pamphlet from her desk.

"By the way, Helga! Just in case you're interested, there's a poetry contest coming up that I think you -"

Helga raised her hand in protest as she backed out of the door.

"Oh no you don't!"

XX

It was late at night, and the Pataki household was silent.

Helga Pataki lay under her covers, more content in her sleep than she had been in the last few days. Her dreams of art show humiliation were gone, replaced by much more pleasant dreams, many of which involved running along sandy beaches and skipping through sun-drenched fields with a certain special someone. Helga would wake up tomorrow morning feeling particularly well-rested.

In another room, outside of Helga's bedroom and down the hall, Miriam lay asleep in her own bed. The television's volume was low, but Miriam had forgotten to turn it off before falling asleep, and it cast a soft glow over the dark room. Miriam shifted fitfully as she slept, dreaming of smoothies and occasionally of running her own business. Her husband was not by her side.

Instead, Bob Pataki could be found downstairs, inside the dark living room where he sat on the couch watching television. Bob was almost asleep, fighting to keep his eyes open. In a moment he would have to turn off the television and join his wife upstairs. He had been watching a wrestling show with Helga, since he had let Helga pick what she wanted to watch, and wrestling turned out to be more interesting than he had expected. Helga had gone up to bed earlier. Bob had wanted to stay and catch a little more of the show, but he found himself unable to resist dozing off.

Just like the upstairs bedroom, the living room was illuminated by the television's hazy glow. The room's silence was punctuated by Bob's occasional snores. All around the couch in which he slept, every wall of the room was decorated by plaques and certificates. A small bookcase was stacked with trophies and awards which flashed an occasional golden glint through the darkness of the room. On each plaque, each framed paper, each trophy, a single name could be found: Olga Pataki.

One certificate was unusual, however. It hung in the center of a wall where a different certificate, one of Olga's, had been placed until very recently. The certificate was set inside a handsome frame, and if one looked closely, one could read a short statement on it that was a little different than the rest:

_Helga G. Pataki. First Place._

XX

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**Notes** - That's it! Hope you guys enjoyed it - let me know what you thought.

I only have one other Hey Arnold story, "What's in a Name?". Check it out if you haven't yet - it could actually sort of work as an alternate ending to this story, occurring after the lunch room scene, even though I wasn't writing it with that in mind.

I hope the general ending to this story wasn't anti-climactic. I was undecided for a while as to whether I would have Arnold decide he liked Helga and get them together, but as I started writing the story I decided it would be too fast, and it seemed weird that Arnold would decide he likes Helga shortly after seeing what he might think was a kind of creepy shrine in his image. Also, some of my future HA story ideas might take place in the same continuity as this one - Olga's summer session in San Lorenzo was something I added in case I wanted to use it in the future, and one of my ideas would use Rhonda's awareness of Helga liking Arnold. So I didn't want to wrap things up too completely in this story.

I had a lot of fun writing this, and all the nice reviews were very encouraging. Even though this is my first HA story, it's ended up being my most popular story (A Kim Possible story, "Going Green", was easily my most popular before this one). The fandom for Hey Arnold is much more active than I would have expected.

Prior to this story I had only written for Kim Possible. If you like that show, you can check out my profile for those stories. My next couple of stories will also be for KP - however, I am definitely thinking of writing more Hey Arnold stories sometime in the future. I even have several ideas and plots in mind already, so put me on author alert if you want.

Hellerick Ferlibay is writing (and has almost finished) a Russian translation of this story, so check out his profile if you're interested in that. I was very flattered that he liked this story enough to translate it. Thanks to Hellerick, Thundercatroar, One Fine Wire, Azure129, Acosta Perez Jose Ramiro, angie93, looneytunecrazy, Leili, Dreamless-Mermaid, SuperAang626, Helga G. Pataki, AdventureGirl6, talklove, Lightness, and Vinsent for your nice reviews. Sorry if I missed anyone.

Okay - if I keep writing notes, they're going to end up longer than the chapter itself, sheesh. I'm done now! Thanks again!


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